Super Ridley Brothers
by BZRich64
Summary: Ridley is hired by Bowser to take down Mario. He then decides to head to the Mushroom Kingdom wearing Mario's hat to taunt them. This plan backfires as everyone mistakes him for the real Mario. When Princess Peach gets kidnapped again not long after that, Ridley finds himself thrust into one unexpected adventure after another as he learns what it means to be "The Mario".
1. World 0-1 An Unlikely Adventure Begins

The chamber was dark, save for the pool of lava far below the bridge spanning from one end to the other. The heat of the lava rose up the sides of the cold, stone walls that lined the chamber and drifted out of the open windows just below the ceiling. It was up here that the beast waited, perched on one of those windows, for his target to arrive. The heat didn't bother him, but he was beginning to lose his patience.

Finally, the door into the chamber and a portly man in a red shirt and blue overalls stepped into the chamber. That was his cue. Ridley dropped from his resting place and dove down below the bridge as the man walked along it, looking for whatever was waiting for him. He spread his wings out and the heat rising from the lava pulled him back up on the other side of the bridge where he landed, smiling as he saw the man in red and blue look around at where he had just dropped.

The sound of Ridley landing on the bridge caused the man to turn around to face him, but it was too late. Ridley reveled in seeing the portly man's face as he was knocked off of the bridge by a single swipe of Ridley's tail. He had an expression could only be seen in someone who realized too late that they were about to die. It was an expression that Ridley always loved to see.

Ridley stepped forwards and peered down to see the man as he plummeted down to the lava. Watched as he was swallowed up within it. Ridley found it odd, as humans normally started burning away to nothing before they even touched lava in a situation like this, but he shrugged the thought away. It was more fun seeing them drown in the molten rock anyway. He looked down at his feet, where the man's hat had fallen off when he had swatted him to his doom. Ridley picked up the hat and spun it around on his finger with a gleeful smile before spreading his wings wide and taking off. He flew up and out through one of the openings near the ceiling, circling around the roof of the castle before gliding off into the distance.

Ridley flew through the sky for several hours before finally approaching a giant castle, lined with spikey and grotesque, monstrous statues. It was the kind of architecture that Ridley could admire. He landed in front of the huge double doors leading inside and waited as a couple of small turtle creatures opened the door for him to enter. He walked past before they were done and knocked them aside as he forced the doors the rest of the way open. He made his way down hallway after hallway until he barged into the through a room where a giant turtle with horns and a spiked shell was slouching in an ornate golden throne.

"That was fast." The turtle said in surprise at Ridley's sudden arrival.

"You gave me an easy job." Ridley scoffed.

The turtle snapped his clawed fingers and a turtle and a brown creature with no arms or hands which reminded Ridley of some kind of nut pushed a large treasure chest into the middle of the room between Ridley and the giant turtle. The small turtle opened up the chest to reveal that it was practically overflowing with gold and jewels.

"Do you have any proof that he's dead?" The turtle asked.

Ridley responded by tossing the hat on top of the pile of gold in the chest. "I watched him burn."

"Very well then." The oversized turtle nodded in satisfaction and raised an arm towards the treasure chest. "Then this is all yours."

Ridley walked over to the chest and closed it tightly. "It's been a pressure doing business for you."

With that, Ridley picked up the chest and left. Once he was outside the castle, he spread his wings out again and took off from the ground, flying straight up into the air. He flew higher and higher, past the stratosphere and into space, where his ship was waiting. He went around to the docking bay and flew inside, with the massive metal doors closed behind him. Once they were shut and the ship's artificial atmosphere filled up the room with breathable air, his lackeys walked in.

"Report." He ordered them.

"We broke into the turtles' castle and broke out the princess they captured, as you ordered." Said one of the Space Pirates. Ridley thought that it was the one he placed in charge of that mission, though it was hard to tell because they all looked alike to him and he couldn't be bothered to figure out who was who. "We then contacted the princess' kingdom and they were willing to pay the ransom. We just brought the gold they gave us to your treasure room right before you returned."

"Excellent." Ridley said coldly. "Then prepare to leave."

The Space Pirates all saluted Ridley and left to go to their posts. Once they were gone, Ridley left as well and made his way through the ship's maze-like hallways. It was a hassle trying to get anywhere on the ship, but it was designed that to ward off intruders. Of course, that didn't mean that Ridley had to like it. Finally, he made it to his room and the door shut closed behind him, automatically locking. He set the treasure chest down and went to the far wall, where he placed his hand against a secret panel, which caused the whole wall to open up. Only a handful of lifeforms had access to this secret room, including himself and he tended to eat the peons he let in here so that they couldn't steal anything from him.

Ridley picked the chest back up again and walked into his treasure room, where he placed it among the piles of valuables collected from across the known universe. He opened up the chest so that its contents would on display for him and him alone. He stared at the contents of the chest for a moment, realizing that he had accidentally left the hat inside. He picked up the red cloth hat and examined it a bit more closely. It was relatively plain looking, apart from the red 'M' in the middle of a white circle on its front, just above the brim. Ridley thought that 'M' must be some sort of letter from the local's language, though he was no idea what it meant.

As he looked at the hat, an idea came to Ridley and he decided to take the hat with him as he left his treasure room. He made his way back to the main hanger, where he had entered the ship, and picked up the intercom.

"Attention, all crew members. This is your captain speaking. I've decided to stick around this planet a little longer to have a bit of fun. Go back to base and report like normal. I'll catch up with you when I'm done. Oh, and if anyone touches my stuff while I'm gone, you're all dead."

He then set the intercom back down and pressed the release button on the doors. Once they had opened wide enough, Ridley jumped out and flew back into the planet's atmosphere. He turned around to see the ship take off and leave as he fell down to the planet's surface before turning around again and curving his descent into a glide.

Ridley made his way across the green fields of the planet. The grass here was much brighter than most of the other planets he had been to before. So was everything else, for that matter. Ridley briefly wondered what it was that made everything on planet SMB-985 so much more colorful, but his mind quickly wandered from that as he realized how hungry he was. Ridley realized that he probably should have had something to eat before he left. Or someone. It wasn't his fault if his lackeys happened to taste like lobster.

Ridley spotted what appeared to be an old well and landed beside it. There was a cluster of some kind of sickly purple fungus growing all around the well, which Ridley proceeded to pull up from the ground and examine. The mushrooms had a skull-like pattern on their caps, which was likely a sign that they were highly toxic. Ridley laughed and ate them all anyway, mentally daring them to try and make him sick.

He then took off again and flew towards the green mountains off in the distance. They looked kind of like they had eyes, which Ridley found a bit odd, but he'd seen weirder things before. The hills and mountains got bigger and bigger as he got closer. In fact, they seemed it be getting bigger than they should. Ridley passed it off as some kind of strange optical illusion caused by a distortion in the atmosphere, or at least something along those lines, as his destination came into view. It was a large, white and red castle that was so gaudy looking it made Ridley feel sick. Or was it the mushrooms? No, it was definitely the large castle. The _really_ large castle. Ridley wasn't sure why they would have needed to make a castle that size unless the beings that lived there were around his size, which he was sure that they weren't.

Ridley landed outside the castle and pulled out the red hat. As he looked at the hat in his hand, it finally started to settle in that something was wrong. The hat was much, much bigger than it had been before. Ridley had no idea what was going on, but he decided to just stick to his plan and figure things out later. The one who it had belonged to was supposed to have belonged to was supposed to be some kind of hero to the people here, and he would relish in watching them as they see him wearing that hat and realizing what would happen. He could almost taste their misery. Or was that the mushroom? No, it was misery.

Ridley put the hat on and walked up to the front doors of the castle. He was about to knock them down and force his way inside when he heard a voice from behind him.

"Oh, hey-a Mario. I didn't-a realize you would-a be back so soon."

Ridley whipped around and nearly knocked over the man standing behind him with his tail. The man didn't seem to notice but just stood there, smiling. He looked similar to the man Ridley had gotten the hat from, but was a bit taller, thinner and wearing green instead of red. The emblem on his hat was also an 'L' rather than an 'M'. Most unusual was that the man seemed to be almost as tall as Ridley himself.

"What?" Ridley asked, confused by the man's behavior.

"Have you-a rescued the princess already? That was-a certainly faster than-a normal."

Ridley stared blankly at the man in green, unsure of how to react.

"I guess old Bowser's still-a no match for you, no? That's-a my brother for you."

There was no way that this guy could have mistaken him for… Mario, was it? The guy he had just killed. By this point, Ridley had realized that he must have been shrunken down to the size of the local life-forms, somehow, but he looked down at himself and could clearly see that he was still his normal purplish dragon-like self apart from the size difference. No one could possibly mistake him for a… human? They looked like humans, but Ridley wasn't aware that they lived in this galaxy. Then again, it felt like humans were everywhere in the universe. Filthy pests.

"Um…" Ridley decided that the best course of action would be to play along and pretend that he didn't realize that the green-clad being was pretending not to notice that Ridley wasn't this… Mario. "Yes. I am back. I have rescued the princess from the clutches of the nefarious giant turtle and returned here to this castle that I… live… at?"

"Oh, does that-a mean that you've decided to move-a into the castle?" The man in green asked.

Ridley hesitated. "…Yes?"

"Well, I'm-a sorry to hear that. It won't-a be the same around the house without-a you there, brother."

"I mean no." Ridley backtracked. "Maybe? Let's just say that I'm thinking about it and move on."

"Okey-dokey."

Ridley stared down at the man in green, who looked back up at him. Ridley flapped his wings once to see if that would draw the man's attention. He didn't seem to notice.

"Well, anyway…" Ridley muttered. "I'm going to go… leave… and… check up on the princess. You know, ah, go see how she's going."

"What a coincidence." The man in green said. "I was-a going to-a go see how things were-a holding up at-a the castle with-a the princess gone, but now that she's-a back already I think I'll-a go see her as well."

"Fine." Ridley was extremely uncomfortable. Either this man was the greatest actor he had ever seen, or he was the biggest idiot he had ever seen. Or maybe both? Ridley had no idea what to make of the current situation but decided to continued playing along for the moment. "Then we should probably go inside, then. To see the princess… yeah."

"You've-a got it." The guy in green walked up to the doors and knocked twice.

The doors opened and Ridley and the guy in green both stepped inside the castle. Ridley was surprised to see that the inside of the castle was somehow even worse than the outside. Although he supposed that it did have a sort of regal look to it. Either way, it still wasn't really to Ridley's taste. Though some would say that Ridley had no taste. Ridley would respond by eating those people and seeing how they taste.

Ridley and the green guy made their way through the castle's brightly decorated halls until they reached the throne room. There was a humanoid person sitting on the throne that Ridley assumed must have been a female. She was wearing a pink dress and a golden crown. The female's blue eyes and blond hair reminded Ridley of the Hunter, but he quickly shook that thought out of his head. There was no way the Hunter would come to this backwater planet out in the middle of nowhere on the outer edge of known space.

Ridley thought about for a moment. This planet could potentially be useful as a place to get away from the Hunter for a while. He was starting to get tired of her constantly murdering him, after all. Perhaps he would try to extend his stay here for a little longer…

"Hi, Mario, Luigi!" The princess said excitedly as Ridley and the guy in green came closer to her. "It's good to see you two. You wouldn't believe what just happened to me."

"I heard you-a got kidnapped by-a Bowser again." Luigi said.

"I did. But that's when things got weird. Some weird lobster-people snuck into the castle and broke me out of there. They brought me back here and asked for a reward, which we were happy to give them, and then they just left."

"Wow, that-a is really interesting." Luigi said in surprise. "Do-a you have any idea where they-a came from?"

"No. They just showed up out of nowhere."

"What do you think about this?" Luigi asked Ridley.

"Yes…" Ridley still couldn't tell if anyone had realized he wasn't Mario yet or not. "That is quite… unusual…"

"Well, we should-a probably be heading back home now." Luigi told the Princess. "It was-a nice seeing you, Princess Peach."

"Yes, I'm sure you have other things that you need to do." The princess replied and started to wave goodbye. "See you again soon."

Luigi turned to go. "Come on-a, Mario. I'm-a making you're-a favorite spaghetti for dinner tonight."

Ridley was so utterly confused as to what was going on. Did no one really notice that he, the purple space dragon/space pirate leader was not the portly human they called Mario? Was it the hat? Maybe it was some kind of hologram projector or something? Ridley had no idea but he had just been promised food and he was still quite hungry, so he went along with Luigi.


	2. World 0-2 A Plate Full of Spaghetti

Ridley followed Luigi as they made their way out of the castle. A pair of short humanoid creatures opened the large set of double doors so that Luigi and Ridley to leave. Luigi walked outside while Ridley stopped to examine the creatures that had opened the doors for them. They appeared to have giant mushrooms of some kind growing out of their heads, which intrigued Ridley. He grabbed one of the humanoids by the mushroom cap with his talons and lifted the creature up to see if it was just some sort of hat. The mushroom didn't come off and Ridley ended up lifting the strange creature up off the ground. The fungus creature started having a fit and flailing its arms and legs around, so Ridley dropped it and it fell onto the ground with a thump. Ridley then realized that Luigi was leaving without him and he had to fly over to catch up with the green-clad human.

As he flew ahead, he passed by a tall blonde woman. Time seemed to stop for a second as he passed by and met her icy blue gaze. It was as if she were staring right into his soul. But a second later and he had caught up to Luigi while the woman had entered the castle, so he put the thought out of his mind.

Ridley continued to follow Luigi as they made their way through a town just outside of the castle. They passed by a post office, a flower garden of some sort, a strange building with a conical blue roof that seemed to spin around for some reason, some sort of training dojo, a large water fountain and a small shop before Luigi came to a stop in front of a large green pipe sticking straight up out of the ground.

"Well-a, Mario. Here-a we go!" Luigi suddenly jumped higher that Ridley would have guessed possible by the green-clothed man who did look like he was in particularly good shape. He landed on top of the green pipe and was sucked into it like it was some sort of vortex. Ridley was actually somewhat started by this unexpected turn of events and peered down the pipe to see what was inside. Even with his exceptional vision and ability to see into the infrared spectrum, there didn't appear to be anything down there but utter darkness.

"Well… So much for the green one." Ridley muttered to himself as he started to walk away. "You know, I'm actually a bit sad. I was looking forward to seeing what spaghetti was."

Ridley heard a strange sound from behind him and turned back to see Luigi standing on top of the pipe.

"What's-a the matter, Mario?" Luigi asked Ridley. "Do you have-a something that you-a need to do before we head-a home?"

"Um, no…" Ridley would have been surprised to see Luigi's sudden return but at this point, he wasn't sure anything could surprise him anymore. "I'll be right there."

Luigi went back through the pipe and Ridley walked back up to it. Perhaps it was some kind of teleporter? Ridley had never seen anything quite like it, but he decided that there was no other choice. Dinner was on the line. He climbed onto the top of the pipe and slid down. It was a weird, almost exhilarating feeling as he felt like he was being sucked through the pitch black tunnel at some point it felt like he had been spun around and was moving in the opposite direction before he resurfaced.

Ridley found himself in a small, secluded clearing surrounded by a white wooden fence. Directly ahead of him was a relatively large house of some sort that was painted a sort of creamy red color with a red tiled roof. There was a large pile of pipe similar to the one Ridley had just traveled through on one side of the house. On the other side of the house, there was a large wooden stake that had been hammered into the ground, with a long steel chain connecting it with a moderately black metallic orb that seemed to be swaying back and forth gently. Ridley had no idea what black orb could be, but he thought he could hear the faint sound of snoring coming from its direction.

Luigi stood on the front porch of the house, waving at Ridley to come over. Ridley jumped off the green pipe he was still standing on and glided over to the steps leading up to the porch. He walked up the stairs, which was a first for him because in the past he had always been too large to use stairs 'properly' and would just jump or fly over them. Once he was up, Luigi turned around and opened the door, then walked inside. Ridley followed him in and realized that he had never actually been inside of a house before. Sure, he had destroyed countless houses and homes before, but he had never really been inside of one. It had a cozy feel to it, which Ridley found unfamiliar and a little disconcerting but also mildly pleasant somehow.

"I'm-a going to get dinner ready." Luigi said, walking into the kitchen. "You-a can just-a sit down and-a relax if you want."

Ridley wasn't sure that he had ever actually used a chair before. So he decided to look around instead of sitting down. There was a painting of the princess hanging up on one of the walls which Ridley admired. It looked to Ridley like a near-perfect likeness of the princess but then again he had only seen her once, for only a few minutes. He wondered briefly if the portrait had been painted by the one they called Mario. Did Mario paint? It didn't really matter to Ridley very much. Either way, Ridley was probably going to take the painting when he left and add it to his collection.

Ridley walked over a window and looked outside, where he saw the black orb he noticed earlier. From this angle, he could see that what appeared to be a row of massive white teeth, possibly even sharper than his own. Further inspection showed that it also had eyes, though they were currently closed.

"Is-a Bow Wow still asleep?" Luigi asked from the kitchen. "That-a chain chomp is-a always so lazy."

Chain Chomp? Ridley had never seen anything quite like the creature before. The way the light reflected off of it made it look metallic, but the longer Ridley stared at it the more obvious it was that the thing was alive.

"Hey, Mario!" Luigi called for Ridley. "Dinner's-a ready! Why don't you-a come over here and eat before it-a gets cold."

Ridley turned around and saw Luigi placing a pair of plates on the table in what Ridley assumed must be the mess hall, or whatever the household equivalent was. He walked over to one of the chairs and fumbled around with it, trying to figure out how to sit down properly. He eventually figured out that he needed to slide his tail between the wooden posts that made up the back of the chair and was able to sit 'properly' while Luigi started eating.

Ridley looked down at the plate in front of him. It looked like 'Spaghetti' was made from the intestines of some sort of small animal, that were straightened out and served coated in the animal's blood. This was a clearly the kind of meal that Ridley could get behind. Maybe the natives of this backward planet weren't as useless as he thought. He looked up at Luigi, who was eating his food using a fork. Ridley looked down at his own fork, placed beside his plate, then back at his food. Ridley then lowered his head and started eating straight from his plate. He had never known what he had been missing out on his entire life.

"Boy, you-a sure are hungry, aren't-a you." Luigi said, not reacting to the spaghetti sauce flying everywhere. "It-a sure is a good thing that I-a made extra."


	3. World 0-3 Peach's Castle

Ridley's leg twitched as he stirred awake. He was sprawled out on a bed that was too small for him, meaning that his wings and tail hung down onto the yellow tiled floor below. It occurred to him that he had never actually slept on a bed before. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time that he had fully slept at all. Normally he would just sleep with one brain while the other stayed awake so that he could always be aware of his surroundings at all times. It actually felt pretty good to be fully rested for once. Though it did take him a moment to remember _why_ he was in a bed.

The floor creaked under Ridley's weight as he rose to his feet and walked down the stairs leading to the first floor of the house, where Luigi was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. The aroma of sizzling meat filled Ridley's nostrils and caused the space dragon to begin salivating as he made his way to the table where a plate had already been set for him.

"You're-a just in time." Luigi said, coming over with a frying pan filled with bacon and placed a few strips on Ridley's plate, alongside some sort of mushy yellow substance that Ridley couldn't identify at first. "Breakfast is-a served."

Ridley greedily devoured the food in front of him before Luigi even had a chance to sit down. He scratched the top of his head as waited impatiently at Luigi ate his own breakfast and felt there. It took him a second to remember the hat he had taken from the red-dressed man that he had taken the day before. It was the reason he was even here. Ridley considered taking the hat off and throwing it away but then decided against it. He still wasn't sure why people seemed to think that he was this "Mario" person but he felt that potentially ruining his cover by removing the red hat right now wouldn't be the best thing to do.

"So-a, Mario…" Luigi started to say once he finished eating. "What are your-a plans for the day?"

Ridley thought for a second. "I don't have any plans for today." It wasn't a lie.

"Well-a, I heard that-a Daisy was coming to visit at the-a castle today, so I was-s planning on stopping by the castle this-a morning to say-a hello. You can-a tag along if-a you want."

"Sure." Ridley hissed. "I might as well."

"Alright-y then," Luigi stood up and picked up his plate. "I'll-a go put away the dishes and-a get ready. Why don't-a you go feed Bow Wow?"

"Okay…" Ridley turned around and crawled over to the front door. He examined it for a moment before he figured out that he needed to turn the small metal knob in order to pull the wooden panel open. He felt that it was a highly rudimentary system but they probably hadn't invented automatic sliding door technology on this backwater planet yet.

Around the side of the house, Ridley found Bow Wow fast asleep. The big black orb-like creature looked like it hadn't even moved since he last saw it. Ridley stared at the big beast and smiled as he thought of something. It would be funny to see the green one's reaction if he ate his pet. Ridley opened his mouth wide and took a huge bite into the Chain Chop. He immediately regretted every decision that had led him up to this point.

Ridley backed away from Bow Wow, pain shooting through every inch of his mouth. The beast didn't just look like it was made out of metal, it actually was. In fact, it felt like it might be the hardest metal that Ridley had ever had the misfortune of ever seeing. Ridley didn't have to worry about the pain too long, however, because the bite had woken Bow Wow up. Before he even had time to react, Ridley found himself flying across the forest clearing as the Chain Chomp slammed into him with all of its power. He slammed into a tree, knocking it over before falling into a bush below.

"What was that?" Ridley screeched as he got back up again and slowly walked over to where Bow Wow was now eating from a large pile of dog food that had spilled out from the side of a broken storage shed kept just within the Chain Chomp's reach. "I've never seen anything hit like that before!"

He then heard a creak from the front door and turned to see Luigi stepping outside. "Okay, I-a think I'm-a ready now. Do you=a have anything that you-a need to do before we-a head out?"

Ridley glanced back at Bow Wow for a split second before answering. "No. No, I think I'm good."

"Then let's-a go, Mario!"

Luigi jumped off of the porch, gaining for more height than Ridley would have expected before landing beside him and walking towards the green pipe they had traveled through to get here the day before. Ridley still wasn't sure how the strange pipe actually worked and eyed it curiously as Luigi jumped onto it and was sucked inside. He wasn't sure if he should go in or not but decided that it had worked last time without any problems so he hopped on and found himself being pulled by some intangible force into the darkness inside.

Ridley emerged from the pipe back in the town they had passed through yesterday. Luigi was already heading down the road leading to the castle so Ridley jumped up and unfurled his wings to glide through the air, catching up to Luigi quickly. Some of the mushroom people that seemed to be the primary inhabitants of the town looked over at them, though no one seemed to react to Ridley with the level of horror and awe that he was used to striking upon all those who gazed upon him. It actually made Ridley a bit uncomfortable to have everyone look at him he was their friend or something like that.

It didn't take long for Ridley and Luigi to make their way back to the castle. The doors were opened by a pair of mushroom people as they approached and one of them eyed Ridley warily as they entered the castle. Ridley suspected that it was probably the same one who he had picked up when they had left the castle, though he couldn't be sure as he couldn't tell the mushroom people apart from each other. He smirked at the toad person evilly and reached around with his tail, spinning the helpless guard around.

Ridley held back a chuckle at the disoriented mushroom as he continued to follow Luigi into the castle. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed the simple things in life. Just messing with people. As he was thinking about that he failed to notice one of the doors along the hallway open up until he suddenly found himself being pulled inside by some invisible force. He slammed into the far wall and fell to the floor upside down as the door closed behind him and a tall woman in a light blue dressed walked out in front of him, arm raised.

The woman held some sort of stick with a star emblem on it that she pointed at Ridley as he had to turn himself over and climb back onto his feet. He prepared to fire a blast of plasma breath at his attacker but found that it wouldn't come out. He clawed at his throat as the woman swished the stick she held through the air and he was suddenly pushed back to the wall and held there by some invisible force.

"Who are you and what have you done with Mario?" The woman asked in a whispered shout.

"I'm the Mario, obviously." Ridley tried to play along with his cover.

"Why would you think that anyone would fall for such an obvious lie?" The woman said indignantly. "You don't even look anything like him and I know that you were with the space pirate ship that was in orbit around the planet just yesterday."

Ridley let out a sigh of relief, catching the woman off-guard. "It's about time someone noticed."

"What do you mean?" The woman lowered her pointy stick slightly.

"I mean, I came here wearing this stupid hat because I thought it would be funny and for some reason, everyone now seems to think that I'm this 'Mario' person. I was starting to think that I was the one who had gone crazy."

"What?" The woman narrowed her single visible eye. "But how would that be possible?"

"I know, right?" Ridley tried to shrug in a casual gesture, though it looked rather off. "You would think that the purple skin, wings and tail would give it away at the very least. I wasn't even pretending to be the Mario until everyone started mistaking me for him."

"You still haven't answered my question." The woman suddenly thrust her stick towards Ridley's throat, holding it there as if it were a knife. "Who are you and where is Mario?"

"They call me Ridley." Ridley responded. "My ship was passing through this galaxy on the run from a bounty hunter when we received a transmission from this planet sent by some turtle king, offering a significant reward to help him stop a princess he kidnapped from being rescued. I decided to take the job but while I killed the one you call Mario and claimed the reward, I secretly had my crew rescue the princess and return her here in exchange for even more treasure. As we were leaving I decided to come here with the Mario's hat to taunt the citizens with the death of their hero but when I arrived I had somehow shrunken down to this diminutive size and everyone thought that I was the Mario for some reason."

Ridley could see a look of horror pass through the woman's eye. It was a look that Ridley knew well and under normal circumstances would take pleasure in causing. It was a look of someone who had just lost hope.

"You're saying…" The woman's arm began to shake, causing the star-shaped end of her stick to start jabbing into Ridley's throat. "That Mario is… dead? How?"

"It was simple, really. I simply knocked him into a pool of lava. This hat is the only thing left of him." Ridley explained.

"How could you do that?" The woman asked in a mix of anguish and fury.

Ridley shrugged again. "The pay was good. It's not like I had any personal investment in anything happening on this backwater planet in the middle of nowhere."

"I should kill you right now." The woman gritted her teeth.

"But that wouldn't bring him back, would it?" Ridley smiled slyly. He could smell the woman's fear and knew that he was starting to get the upper hand in this confrontation.

Suddenly, the door opened and Rosalina immediately lowered her arm, releasing Ridley from the force holding him up. Luigi was standing in the doorway with a brown-haired princess in a yellow and orange dress.

"There-a you are, Mario." Luigi said. "I was-a wondering where-a you went. And hi, Rosalina. It thought I-a saw you here yesterday. What-a brings you-a here."

"I just came here to warn Princess Peach that I spotted a space pirate ship in the area," Rosalina said without turning around to face Luigi. "I was worried that they might cause some trouble here, but I guess I was mistaken since they've already left. Mario and I were just catching up. Isn't that right, _Mario_?"

"Huh?" Ridley was confused by Rosalina's sudden change in attitude but saw that she was glaring at him so he decided to adlib. "Right! Because it's been a while since we've seen each other and we've both had a number of new adventures since last time."

"By the way…" Rosalina added in a vaguely smug tone. "What exactly are you two doing here?"

Luigi and the brown-haired woman turned to each other in embarrassment. Ridley thought he saw their faces turn, which he didn't realize that humans could even do.

"We were, uh, just looking for a private place to chat." The woman said, turning back to Rosalina and Ridley.

"Yeah!" Luigi added a bit too quickly.

Before the conversation could turn any more awkward, the sound of an explosion sounded throughout the castle and the whole building shook for a moment. Luigi and the woman he was with both fell to the ground and Ridley only managed to stay up by steadying himself with his wings and tail. Rosalina didn't seem affected at all, causing Ridley to realize that she was actually hovering just above the ground, her feet just a couple centimeters above the floor.

"What-a was that?" Luigi wondered aloud.

"I don't know." Rosalina said. "But we should hurry to the throne room."


	4. World 0-4 Kidnapped, Again

Rosalina seemed to glide through the hallway with a nimble grace that Ridley had never seen before. He could just barely keep up with her while running along the walls as they made their way to the throne room. They managed to get there just in time to see Bowser's Clown Car fly out through a massive hole that had been blown out of the ceiling. Peach leaned over the edge of the clown-faced vehicle just long enough to let out a scream for help before being pulled back in.

"NO!" Rosalina yelled as she raised her wand to stop the Clown Car before it could get away. Before she could do anything though, the wand was knocked out of her hand by a blast of oddly geometric magic.

"Not so fast!" Shrieked a strange, yellow figure in a blue cloak that was hovering on what appeared to be a broomstick. Its beak-like face was curled up into a smug smile, which immediately turned to fear as it noticed Ridley. "The Princess stays with us this time."

The creature hurled a blast of magic at Ridley before flying away through the hole in the ceiling after its master. Ridley was barely fazed by the attack but it was enough to distract him long enough for the thing to get away.

"Cursed Magikoopa…" Rosalina growled as she picked her wand up off the ground as Luigi and Daisy finally caught up to them.

"What-a happened?" Luigi asked. His mouth dropped open as he saw the gaping hole up above. "Mama Mia! Don't tell me they got the princess again!"

"I'm afraid so." Rosalina sighed. "We tried to stop them but Kamek managed to distract us long enough for them to get away."

"Oh, no." Daisy gasped. "So soon?"

"It-a normally takes-a Bowser at least a week before he-a tries kidnapping the princess again." Luigi shook his head. "You-a think he would-a learn by now that we always manage to get-a her back."

"Speaking of which, Luigi, you and 'Mario' should probably head out now." Rosalina said as she resumed her usual posture. "You wouldn't want to keep Princess Peach waiting long for a rescue, after all."

"You're-a right." Luigi nodded in agreement, not noticing the unusual emphasis that Rosalina had put into Mario's name. "But-a what about you, Rosalina? We-a could sure use-a your help."

"I'm afraid that I must be heading back to the Observatory. I've already been gone a day and the Lumas start to panic when I'm away for very long." Rosalina gave a weak apologetic smile. "But I'm sure that you two will be able to get along without my help."

"I-a suppose that you're right."

"Although, before you go I would like a word with 'Mario' in private." Rosalina said, gesturing towards Ridley.

"Right." Luigi nodded again. "I'll-a meet you outside."

Luigi turned and hurried back to the castle's entrance. Daisy went with him, leaving Ridley and Rosalina alone. Ridley had remained silent during this entire exchange, trying to understand what was going on.

"Wait, how often does this princess get abducted?" Ridley asked Rosalina in dumbfounded shock.

"Far too often." Rosalina sighed.

"What's wrong with these people? If it were me, I would have had this guy killed after the first time he tried taking her!"

"Yes, well, not everyone is a merciless space pirate like you." Rosalina said harshly. "The people of the Mushroom Kingdom are pacifists who actually believe that life holds value, unlike monsters like you."

"I think life has value." Ridley argued. "Otherwise there would be no point to killing people."

Rosalina gave Ridley a cold glare that told him that he had stepped over a proverbial line.

"Uh, I mean… um…" Ridley tried to change the subject. "They should at least put some preventative measures against having their leader abducted like this. It's important no matter how you look at it."

"Yes, I haven't really been able to understand that either." Rosalina relented. "But to be honest I don't think that the Toads are even capable of putting up more of a fight. They have to rely on the Mario Brothers for practically everything that goes wrong. Which is why they can't find out about what you've done."

"What do you mean 'what I've done'?" Ridley asked, then immediately realized what she was talking about. "Oh, right."

"No one can know that Mario is dead, which is why I'm going to make you help Luigi rescue Princess Peach while I return to my observatory to try and find out how to fix the situation and with luck even figure out why everyone else seems to think that you are Mario for some reason."

"Alright, but you do realize that I'll be doing things 'my way', right?"

"You will do no such thing." Rosalina's voice felt like ice running down Ridley's spine as she pointed her wand at him threateningly. "If you so much as think about killing anyone or anything else then I will personally see to it that you will regret ever coming to this planet."

"You say that like I don't already regret it." Ridley said sarcastically, provoking another glare from Rosalina. "Fine, I'll rescue the princess without killing anyone. Shouldn't be too hard, I'll probably be done by nightfall. Though I'm not really sure how long a solar cycle is on this planet."

"I believe that a day here would be considered about twenty-four hours in Federation Standard Time." Rosalina replied.

"You're familiar with the Galactic Federation?" Ridley asked a bit louder than he meant.

"Let's just say that there's a reason they haven't expanded their territory this way." Rosalina answered coyly.

Ridley couldn't stop himself from letting out a small chuckle, or at least a sound that could be approximated as one. "Well, that is interesting to here. I would have thought that a goody-two-shoes like you would be pretty close with a group like the Federation."

"Perhaps I am a 'goody-two-shoes'. Rosalina said. "Which is exactly why I've made sure that the Federation stays out of this area. I'm sure that you know as well as I do that they aren't what they seem."

"I probably know it even better than you do." Ridley grinned. "But I suppose that I should be going now. I have a princess to save, after all, and of course I wouldn't want to keep the green one waiting. I am the Mario now, am I not?"

Ridley turned and ran off, practically galloping down the hallway. Rosalina sighed and slipped her right hand under her bangs, resting it against her obscured eye as she looked down at the floor in exasperation.

"Well, this is certainly an unexpected turn of events." She muttered to herself in a mix of bitter sarcasm and disdain. "I can't believe that I'm actually letting that monster do this but I guess I don't really have a choice. I don't even know how I'm going to fix this mess. I've never tried bringing someone back from the dead before. I doubt it's even possible. _And_ I'm talking to myself again. That's never a good sign."

Rosalina sighed and looked up at the sunlight pouring into the room through the massive hole that had been blown into the ceiling. She pulled out her wand again and gave it a swish, causing pieces of debris rose up from the ground as the castle was magically repaired.

"If only I could fix this as easily as I can fix that."

Rosalina turned and left the throne room, mentally going over the many books she had back in her library in the Comet Observatory. She couldn't recall ever reading anything that would help here bring someone back into this world from the next, though she had never specifically looked for anything like that before either. There had to be something in her vast collection of books that would help. Her library contained all the knowledge of several galaxies, after all. There had to be something. There just had to.

As Rosalina thought about what to do, Ridley reached the castle's front gate where Luigi was waiting for him. The two guards that normally guarded the entrance were nowhere to be seen, apparently scared off by the explosion. Ridley could smell their fear, telling him the exact positions where they were hiding. Normally, he would hunt them down just for the sake of it but that wasn't really an option for him. Rosalina had easily been able to overpower him already and there was no telling what she would be able to do to him if she actually wanted to hurt him. He didn't want to risk her rage, which is why he decided that he was going to go ahead and play along with all of this for now. Or at least, until he found a way to regain his proper size and power. Once he was back to his old self again, he would raze the entire Mushroom Kingdom, or better yet this entire planet, and there would be nothing she could do about it.

"Hey-a Mario, ready to-a go?" Luigi asked him as Ridley approached.

"Sure, why not." Ridley shrugged. "Why don't you lead the way?"

"R-really?" Luigi asked in surprise.

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"N-no," Luigi shook his head, "it's just… you never let me lead."

"Well, this time I am." Ridley said, hoping that it wasn't obvious that he was only offering because he had no idea where they were going. Although at this point he was sure that he could probably do or say anything without anyone noticing anything out the ordinary. He was really getting curious about why that was.

"Alright, then." Luigi said cheerfully. "Let's-a go!"


	5. World 0-5 The Wizard of Toad Town

Luigi and Ridley made their way from the castle back into Toad Town. Ridley had no idea where they were going, so he just followed Luigi as they walked along the brick road leading into town. They passed by the post office on their way to the eastern entrance of town when they heard someone call out to them.

"Hello, Mario Brothers! May I have a word with you before you go?"

Ridley turned to see an old man in a purple cloak with a massive bushy white mustache standing outside a blue house with a strange, spinning roof. The man's face was obscured by his hood so that the only thing visible other than his giant mustache was his glowing yellow eyes.

"Oh, hi-a Merlon." Luigi seemed to know who the man was but was confused that he was speaking to them. "What-a do you want to talk to-a us about?"

"Well you see," Merlon started, "Last night as I was dreaming my ancestor, Madame Merlar, visited me in the dream and told me that the princess would be kidnapped."

"If-a you came to warn us, then you're-a too late. Bowser's-a already taken her again." Luigi replied. Ridley noticed from his body language that Luigi seemed oddly eager not to get into a conversation with Merlon.

"Oh, I know. My ancestor told me that nothing could be done to stop it from happening, otherwise I would have already tried to prevent the Princess from getting kidnapped."

"Well-a, we really need to-a go and rescue Princess Peach now." Luigi started to back away from Merlon cautiously.

"Wait!" Merlon called out to him. "I'm not done yet. You see, after my ancestor told me that the Princess would be kidnapped she told me that you, the Mario Bros., would go and rescue her like you always do. But she said that you will end up facing some harder challenges than you have ever faced before and that you will need help on your journey."

"Then what-a do we need to do?" Luigi asked.

"Well, you see, it all started a long time ago when my ancestor, Madame Merlar, was just a young girl. It had been prophesied that she would one day be a great messenger of the stars one day but before that happened she had to go on a long, grueling quest to defeat a monster called the Blizzaurus which had started causing problems for her village.

You see, back then whole villages would work together to grow crops needed to sustain them. But my ancestor, Madame Merlar, and her people lived up in the north where it was so cold and icy that almost nothing could grow. They were able to grow enough food to survive up there but then Blizzaurus showed up one day and started eating their crops before they could be harvested. This meant that the people would eventually starve unless they could do something to stop Blizzaurus. So the people of the village drew lots to decide who would have to stop Blizzaurus from eating their crops. You see, back then people would draw lots to make these kinds of decisions when no one wanted to be the person who had to do something but someone had to do it and of course no one wanted to be the one to have to face Blizzaurus as it was a giant dragon that could freeze things with its breath. So, the people of the village drew lots and my ancestor, Madam Merlar, drew the short stick. Literally, as that's how drawing lots actually works. Everyone grabs a stick and whoever ends up with the stick that's shorter than the others is the one who ends up having to do the thing that no one wants to do but someone still has to.

Now my ancestor, Madame Merlar, knew that there was no way that she would be able to defeat Bilzzaurus on her own so she set out to find help. She traveled all around the land, which we now call the Mushroom Kingdom, in search of anyone who would aid her in her quest to defeat Blizzaurus. Unfortunately, no one at the time had ever managed to defeat a monster that powerful before so no one was willing to even try. Eventually, however, she came to a small village where she met a young man whose name known as Merthur, who also happens to be one of my ancestors. Merlthur agreed to help my ancestor, Madame Merlar, but even with the two of them, they wouldn't be enough to stop Blizzaurus. So they needed to find some way of actually being able to defeat a dragon."

Luigi had already fallen asleep while trying to listen to Merlon's story and Ridley found it hard to stay focused on what the old man was saying. He would have preferred to cut the old man's story short by simply devouring the miserable storyteller but he really didn't want to see what exactly Rosalina would do to him if he gave in to his instincts like that. He was able to pay attention to the full thing and after several hours had passed he finally reached the end of the story.

"And so my ancestors, Madame Merlar and Merlthur completed the twentieth and final task given to them so that they were allowed to return to the village with their new powers before Blizzaurus could eat the next year's crops. They waited for the dragon to arrive and as soon as they did they were able to ambush him and defeat Blizzaurus once and for all. They saved the village from starvation and were able to live the rest of their lives together happily, eventually having a son who had a daughter who had a daughter who had a son who had a son who had a daughter who had a son who had a son who had a daughter who had a daughter who had a son who had a daughter who had a son who had a son who had a son who had a daughter who had a daughter who had a daughter who had a son who had a son who is me. So, do you see what you must do now?"

"Actually I fail to see how any of that relates to what we're doing." Ridley replied as Luigi finally woke up. "Also, I'm a bit confused about the part where Merlthur died during the 13th task where they had to through the evil ring into the volcano and Merlar was able to bring him back from the afterlife as the 14th task. Didn't the gods already have all twenty tasks picked out for them from the beginning? Does that mean that they already knew that Merlthur was going to die? Because if they did then that would imply that they already knew that the two would be able to complete all of the tasks successfully and if that's the case then what was the point of even having them go through all of the tasks in the first place?"

"I believe it was so that they would be able to develop the strength of character needed to be able to defeat Blizzaurus." Merlon answered.

"But one of the tasks involved stopping a war and other required them to kill an immortal sorcerer. Even just fighting through all of those guardians protecting the palace where they were given the tasks seemed like an even more impressive feat than actually stopping the dragon at the end."

"I suppose you do have a point." Merlon agreed. "But that's not really the issue here."

"What-a were we even supposed to have-a learned from that story?" Luigi asked, pretending that he had any idea what Merlon and Ridley were talking about.

"What? Oh, right." Merlon paused for a moment. "I don't actually remember. I was so busy telling the story that I forgot why I was supposed to tell it to you."

Luigi sighed. "Well, then-a I guess we-a really should be going. We-a do still need to-a save Princess Peach after all."

"Right, right." Merlon nodded. "I don't want to take up any more of your time. Good luck!"

"Thank-a you." Luigi nodded and turned away, taking several steps before running the rest of the way out of town so that they wouldn't have any more interruptions on the way. Ridley was able to keep up with him easily. "Okey-dokey. Let's-a go for real this-a time. No-a more distractions."

"Yes." Ridley agreed. "I don't think that I could handle another story like that."

"Still, it-a would have been-a nice if he-a could have-a told us would we-a were actually supposed to-a do."

"I doubt it was anything important." Ridley said. "I don't buy into all of that psychic nonsense."

"Really?" Luigi was surprised to hear this from the giant space dragon that he believed to be his now-deceased brother. "But-a Merlon's fortunes have-a never been-a wrong before."

"It's all just a scam. I'm sure he probably sets things up so that it seems like he can tell the future just so that he can get people's money. I've seen the same trick countless times."

"Really? Where?"

"Um…" Ridley suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be masquerading as 'the Mario'. "Oh, you know. Around."

"I-a suppose you have-a been all over the place." Luigi said wistfully. "I wish-a I could travel as-a much as you-a do."

"Perhaps you could come with me the next time I travel." Ridley lied, hoping to Luigi to shut up.

"Really? That-a would be great!"

"Sure, why not." Ridley was seriously considering risking the space-witch's wrath and running Luigi through with his tail if the green-clad plumber was going to go on like this the whole way.


	6. World 1 Goomba Road

The first thing that Ridley noticed once he and Luigi had finally made their way out of town was a number of large brick cubes suspended in midair. Ridley had no idea why or how they were there but Luigi didn't seem to pay any attention to them so Ridley decided not to ask. Luigi did react, however, when they came up to a floating yellow block that had a white question mark on each side.

"Hey-a, do you-a mind if I get this one?" Luigi asked.

"Um, sure." Ridley tried to hide the fact that he had no idea what Luigi was talking about.

Luigi then ran up to the yellow question block and jumped with his fist held above his head, punching the block from below. The yellow block suddenly turned brown as it was hit, with the question mark completely disappearing and an orange and yellow flower sprouted out from the top. Luigi jumped up onto the mysteriously floating block and touched the flower, which seemed to dissolve at his touch as Luigi's clothes suddenly changed color. His green hat and shirt turned white while his blue overalls became green.

Ridley opened his mouth to ask what just happened but instead just mentally slapped himself for trying to question anything that happened at this point. He was long past being able to understand what was going on. Luigi hopped back down and the two continued walking.

"It-a looks like there are-a some Goombas up ahead." Luigi pointed out after a moment. "I'll use the power I just got from the Fire Flower on them."

Ridley looked up ahead and saw several small brown bipeds walking towards him. He had seen several of these creatures at Bowsers Castle and wondered why such seemingly harmless beings could possibly pose any sort of threat. He watched Luigi run up ahead and start throwing green fireballs from his gloved hands at the Goombas. Ridley had no idea how Luigi was able to seemingly create fire out of nothing, as even his own plasma breath required a fuel source which he stored in a specialized organ near his lungs.

Two of the Goombas were hit by the green fire and were sent flying back, blackened and unconscious. The remaining Goombas seemed completely unfazed by this and charged at Luigi, only to suffer the same crispy fate. Ridley thought that it was unfair that Luigi could cause so much carnage already when Ridley wouldn't be able to go all out without having to face the wrath of the space witch.

"You know, Mario, I-a feel like this-a gets easier every time." Luigi said as Ridley caught up to him. "Maybe it's-a just that I'm-a getting stronger."

"Sure it is." Ridley felt like that was the thing he should say and not that those were the most pathetic enemies that he'd ever seen. It was no wonder why Bowser had needed to hire Ridley to kill Mario if these were what is own followers were like. The fact that he even managed to maintain his title of King seemed surprising to Ridley. Although he was sure that Bowser probably had stronger minions as well.

The unlikely duo continued on their journey. Luigi easily defeated all of the Goombas that got in their way while Ridley didn't have to so much as lift a finger. They also came across several more yellow blocks like the one Luigi had punched earlier, though these ones only seemed to hold varying amounts of golden coins. Ridley liked gold, but he was a bit disappointed that he didn't get the opportunity to try out a fire flower for himself.

The path they followed eventually led them to a large stone castle, similar in design to the one Ridley staked out in to kill Mario. A sudden suspicion suddenly filled Ridley's mind. What if Luigi was just feigning ignorance about his true identity and was secretly leading Ridley into a trap to get revenge for his dead brother. Ridley eyed the man in green cautiously, as if sizing him up. If Luigi was planning something, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

"Well, that-a was fast." Luigi said as he stopped outside the open doorway leading inside. "I-a can't believe we've-a already made it to-a the first castle."

"Yes." Ridley remained wary.

"Well, let's-a go inside!"

Luigi hurried into the darkened castle and Ridley followed, making sure to keep a safe distance from him. The castle's corridors were like a maze and there were Goombas lurking around every corner, but they were still no match for Luigi. Even the various traps and puzzles strewn about randomly were barely able to slow them down.

Eventually, they made their way into a large room, the layout of which Ridley recognized instantly. It was the same as the room that he had murdered Mario in, complete with the giant lava pit down below. This was all that Ridley needed to see to know what was about to happen. He lifted up his tail, ready to strike Luigi down in a single strike. Sure, he would have to deal with whatever consequences were in store for this but it was kill or be killed and Ridley had already been killed more than enough times before.

"WELL, WELL, WELL." A voice echoed through the stone chamber. "IF IT AIN'T DA MARIO BRUDDAHS."

Ridley looked up just in time to see a giant mass fall down onto the bridge right where Luigi was walking. Luigi was sent flying back into Ridley, his clothes returning to their original coloration. It was clear now that Ridley was wrong about the situation. Luigi didn't have some sort of ambush planned for him here. Bowser did.

Before them stood a giant Goomba, standing at a little over twice Ridley's height. It wore white and red striped pants around its torso, had a garish red and gold crown resting on its head and a thick white mustache that gave it an almost regal appearance. Overall the Goomba would have completely comical if it weren't the massive scar across its left eye, which was permanently transfixed on the space to his side in a glassy blue stare.

"OR SHOULD I SAY, DA SOON TA BE DEAD BRUDDAHS? MWAHAHAHAHA!"

"W-who are you?" Luigi's voice cracked as he asked the question.

"ME! WHY, I'M DA GOOMBA KING, OF COURSE! KING OF DA GOOMBAS! THE ONE DA GOOMBAS CALL KING! KING OF ALL THINGS GOOM! AND I AM HERE TA MAKE YA PAY FOR ALL THAT YOU'S DONE TO DA GOOMBAS! FOR TOO LONG YOU'S STOMPED US, YOU'S BURNED US AND YOU'S SLAPPED US WITH THOSE SILLY LOOKIN' RACCOON TAIL THINGS! BUT NO MORE! I'MMA START'N A REVOLUTION! A REVOLUTION DAT WILL PUT'S THE GOOMBAS IN THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE AT THE TOP OF THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM! AND THEN… THE WORLD!"

"Hey, wait. I-a remember you-a now." Luigi said as he got back onto his feet. "Mario's fought you once or twice before, haven't you Mario?"

"Um… sure." Ridley had no idea if that was true or not, but he went along with it.

"THAT'S RIGHT!" The Goomba King replied. "BUT THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT! THIS TIME, I WILL WIN!"

"What happened to your eye?" Luigi asked. "Mario never mentioned it being like that before."

"I SLIPPED WHILE PRACTICIN' MA DRAMATIC ARRIVAL FOR WHEN YA FINALLY SHOWED UP!" The Goomba King explained. "AND I FELL ON DAT AX OVAH THERE!"

The Goomba King used one of his feet to point to a large battle ax that was sticking out of the floor on the other side of the bridge from where Luigi and Ridley had entered. Luigi and Ridley both flinched squeamishly as they pictured it happening.

"I'm-a so sorry to-a hear that." Luigi said with full sincerity.

"HOW DARE YA TRY TA SYMPATHISE WIT' ME! DIS IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT!" The Goomba King yelled furiously.

"What? How is it our fault?" Luigi asked, flabbergasted by the sudden accusation.

"IF YA HADN'T TAKEN SO LONG TA GET HERE!"

"But, we got here as fast as we could." Luigi said defensively. "How long have you been waiting for us?"

"ABOUT FIVE YEARS!"

Luigi was stunned into silence. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of anything to say to that. Ridley was, if anything, even more confused by it. Even the Goomba King himself seemed to be confused, though that may have just been because of his bad eye.

"BUT ENOUGH CHATTAH!" The Goomba King exclaimed. "I HAVE USED DIS TIME TA FORMULATE A PERFECT STRATEGY TA DEFEAT YA, AND I HAVE TRAINED MY BODY TA DA ABSOLUTE PEAK OF PERFECTION! IT IS NOW TIME FOR ME TA REACH MA FINAL FORM AND EVOLVE BEYOND MA CURRENT LIMITATIONS! FOR DA GOOMBA KING, IT IS MORPHIN' TIME!"

The Goomba King's entire body began to glow bright white as radiant beams of light shone in every direction. Luigi and Ridley both had to cover their as the Goomba King transformed before them. Several minutes later, the light subsided as the metamorphosis was complete.

"BEHOLD! I HAVE NOW BECOME… DA PARAGOOMBA KING!"

The only noticeable difference of his transformation was that he had now grown a pair of wings that were barely big enough to support his weight. He hovered in the air pathetically before trying to charge at Ridley and Luigi. They both ducked out of the way easily, causing the Paragoomba King to crash into the floor behind them. Luigi and Ridley took this opportunity to simply walk across the rest of the bridge.

"Well, that was-a easy." Luigi said as they made their way into the next room.

"NOT SO FAST!"

They turned around to see the Paragoomba King standing directly behind them.

"Well… that… was… easy." Ridley said mockingly.

"YA MAY HAVE MADE IT PAST ME, BUT I STILL HAVE ONE LAST TRICK UP MA SLEEVE!"

"But you-a don't have-a sleeves." Luigi pointed out.

"Or arms, for that matter." Ridley added.

"HYAAA!"

The Paragoomba King did a spinning jump kick towards the wall, hitting a giant red button with his foot. Suddenly, the floor gave out underneath Luigi. Luigi screamed as he fell down the seemingly endless pit below.

"UH, THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO WORK ON BOTH OF YA." The Paragoomba King said awkwardly to Ridley, who was standing right next to where the hole had opened up.

Ridley smiled. With Luigi now out of the way, he was now free to let loose a little. He opened his mouth up wide and unleashed a blood-curdling screech that echoed throughout the entire castle. The Paragoomba King shuddered and fell to the ground in fright.

"W-WHAT WAS THAT?" The Paragoomba King asked, lying on the floor and shivering in utter terror.

"That was just a taste of what I could possibly do to you." Ridley smirked as he bent down to stare the Paragoomba King in the eye. "From now on, you will never take any action against me or this Fungus Kingdom."

"YA MEAN DA MUSHROOM KINGDOM?"

"That's what I said." Ridley's smirk turned to a menacing grimace.

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT. I'LL DO IT! JUST DON'T HURT ME!" The Paragoomba King begged.

"Good." Ridley turned around and walked towards the hole Luigi had fallen down.

"I THOUGHT YA WAS SUPPOSED TA BE A HERO." The Paragoomba King said.

Ridley turned his head back towards the Paragoomba King. "And what good has that done so far. I'm changing my methods. Pray to whatever misshapen deity you worship that I do not change them any more."

With that, Ridley hopped down the hole so that he could regroup with Luigi wherever it led, leaving the Paragoomba King alone, crying. Perhaps Ridley had gone a bit too far, but it felt so good to finally lash out at something again that he couldn't really help himself. He tried to put the thought behind him as he reached the bottom of the long shaft and landed in a large underground cave.

"Oh, their you-a are, Mario." Luigi said excitedly. "You wouldn't happen to-a know where we are, would you?"


	7. World 2 The Cavern of Blargg

"Hello!" Luigi yelled. The sound reverberated throughout the. "Mama mia!"

While Luigi messed around with his echo, Ridley closed his eyes and listened. By measuring the exact timing and sound of Luigi's echoes he was able to gauge the general layout of the tunnel system they were trapped in.

"This way." Ridley pointed in the direction that determined was most likely to lead into an exit and started walking. Luigi followed.

The duo made their way through the damp subterranean cavern. Luigi whistled as they made their way through the apparently empty tunnels system, which made it easier for Ridley to find their way through the labyrinthine caves.

"What do you-a think this-a place is?" Luigi asked after a while.

"My guess would be an old diamond mine." Ridley replied.

"What-a makes you-a say that?"

"Because of all the diamonds." Ridley gestured to some of the many crystal structures jutting out of the blue stone walls.

"Oh, right." Luigi gave an embarrassed chuckle. "They-a sure are pretty, though, with the way they-a light-a up the cave and-a everything."

"I suppose so." Ridley was already bored with this conversation. "It would appear that light is probably shining in from the tunnel entrance and reflecting off of some of the crystals further into the cave, and so on. The light should be fading as it goes further into the cave, though. Or why this mine wouldn't still be in use considering how full it still is."

"You know, it-a does seem awfully quiet in-a here." Luigi said after they went a little further. "It-a seems like-a normally we'd be running into more of-a Bowser's goons by-a now."

"It's not like anyone would have guessed that we'd end up down here." Ridley pointed out. "And even if we did, it would be foolish to send anyone else after us as we could use them to find a way out."

"I-a never even thought about-a that." Luigi paused for a moment. "Hey, do you-a hear water?"

"It's coming from up ahead." Ridley replied. "Although I'm not sure that it's water."

"That-a must mean that-a we're almost out of-a hear!" Luigi perked up and run ahead excitedly.

"Wait, Green One!" Ridley called out to Luigi, but it was too late.

Luigi ran out into the large open chamber up ahead and was barely able to stop himself before running off a cliff and falling down into the massive pool of lava below.

"I guess this might explain a few things." Ridley said as he caught up to Luigi.

"Mama mia!" Luigi yelled. "Why-a is it always lava?"

"I did try to warn you." Ridley said smugly.

"Well-a what do-a we do now?" Luigi asked.

Ridley responded by pointing to another tunnel across from them, then to the thin ledge that spanned the outer edge of the cave.

"How-a do you expect-a us to make it across that-a way? That path-a looks like could-a barely hold us."

"Then we'll just have to tread lightly." Ridley grinned.

Luigi sighed and put his back against the wall, slowly shuffling along the pathway. Ridley did the same, though he was much less cautious as he could just fly back up as he fell. In fact, he could easily just fly across the lava pit to the other side easily while carrying Luigi. But that would mean not being able to enjoy watching Luigi struggle.

After a couple of hours, Luigi finally reached the other side. As soon as he stepped foot into the tunnel, he dropped to his knees, panting with exhaustion. Ridley kicked off from the wall and glided the rest of the way there while Luigi wasn't watching.

"I… can't… uh… believe… we… uh… made… it…" Luigi said between gulps of air.

"Now if only we were any closer to actually finding a way out of here." Ridley said sarcastically.

"Do you-a hear something?" Luigi asked as he straightened up again.

"Do you mean that 'boom boom' noise coming from up ahead?"

"Yeah, that. What do you-a think is causing that-"

Luigi didn't have time to finish his question before a large brown blur came out from around the bend in the tunnel just ahead and rushed towards them. Ridley barely had time to react, shoving Luigi out of the way while falling back to avoid getting hit himself. The object skidded to a stop behind them, appearing to be some sort of brown rock covered in large white spikes.

"Mama mia!" Luigi exclaimed. "What was-a that?"

"I don't know, but it's definitely not friendly."

"Boom boom boom!" The spikes retracted into the brown mass before it stood up, revealing itself to be a turtle-like creature around Luigi's height. "Boom boom boom boom!"

"It's-a Boom Boom!" Luigi revealed.

"What a creative name." Ridley remarked. "You go on ahead I'll take care of this."

"Alright, but-a be safe." Luigi said before hightailing it out of there.

"Boom boom boom!" Boom Boom shouted and charged after Luigi, flailing its arms around wildly.

Ridley whipped his tail along the ground in Boom Boom's path, causing the overgrown Koopa to trip.

"Don't think you can get away from me that easily." Ridley said tauntingly. "I just said that I was going to take care of you, didn't I?"

"Boom boom boom boom boom!" Boom Boom got back onto his feet and turned to face Ridley.

"You think that you can beat me?" Ridley goaded Boom Boom as he slowly backed up towards the edge of the lava pit. "Well, why don't you just try it?"

"Boom boom!" Boom Boom charged at Ridley, who effortlessly sidestepped out of the way, causing Boom Boom to go right over the edge of the cliff.

"That was no challenge at all."

Ridley smirked and waited for about three seconds. Then he turned around and dived over the edge of the cliff. He caught the falling Boom Boom in midair and pulled up, spreading his wings out wide so that the heat radiating from the lava down below caught them and lifted both reptilians back up, where Ridley threw Boom Boom into the ground before landing beside him.

"Boom… boom boom?" Boom Boom asked, confused as to why Ridley would save him.

"Let's just say that I don't feel like seeing anyone of their own stupidity." Ridley lied. "Now, why don't you show me the way out of this place?"

"Boom." Boom Boom relented.

Before they could leave, however, the tunnel began to shake violently.

" **Who dares to disturb the slumber of Gargantua Blargg?"**

The powerful voice echoed throughout the cavern and a massive pillar of lava rose up, towering high above Ridley and Boom Boom. The pillar of lava seemed to have a face, with two beady black eyes and an enormous pair of bushy black eyebrows. A mouth opened, displaying two very large and very prominent fangs.

"What are you?" Ridley was caught off-guard by this, as he had seen a lot of lava in his long lifetime(s) but had never seen it grow a face before.

" **I am Gargantua Blargg!"** Gargantua Blargg answered. **"And you have met your end!"**

Gargantua Blargg opened his mouth wide and sprayed a stream of lava at them. Ridley quickly turned around and spread his wings, shielding Boom Boom from the lava.

"Boom boom boom boom?" Boom Boom looked up at Ridley, thankful for the space dragon, that he, like almost everyone else, thought was Mario.

"Don't get used to it." I bit of strain was evident in Ridley's voice.

"Boom boom boom boom boom." Boom Boom pulled out something he had tucked under his shell.

"What is it?" Ridley asked.

Boom Boom held out a blue flower similar to the orange one that Ridley had seen Luigi use earlier. Ridley took the gift as Gargantua Blargg's attack subsided and the flower dissolved in his hand. Ridley could feel his body temperature make a dramatic decline and his skin turned a light shade of blue as he transformed into Ice Ridley. The power that the Ice Flower granted flowed through him in a sensation that felt like nothing he had felt since the entire universe's supply of Phazon was destroyed by the Hunter. Ice Ridley turned around to face Gargantua Blargg, feeling like he could take on anything.

" **You weren't supposed to survive that."** Gargantua Blargg was a bit thrown off by this unexpected turn of events. **"Not that it will matter after this!"**

Gargantua Blargg took in a deep breath, preparing to spit even more lava at them. As soon as the giant lava creature opened his mouth, however, Ice Ridley used a breath attack of his own. Thanks to the Ice Flower that he had just absorbed, his normal Plasma Breath attack had been replaced with an even more powerful Ice Breath ability. A frosty white and blue beam shot out of Ice Ridley's mouth, filling Gargantua Blargg's mouth with a massive block of ice. Gargantua Blargg's eyes began to water as lava built up in his throat until he passed out, unable to breathe.

"I'm not going to pretend that I understand how any of that worked." Ice Ridley turned back to Boom Boom as Gargantua Blargg melted back into the lava pool. "But I do suppose that I should thank you for this new power."

"Boom boom." Boom Boom said gratefully. "Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, boom boom."

"I suppose so." Ice Ridley concurred. "Then I guess once you show me the way out of here, we'll be even."

"Boom!"

The rest of the way through the tunnels proved fortunately uneventful and it wasn't too long before Ice Ridley and Boom Boom reached the tunnel exit, and they were able to walk out into the sunset, where Luigi was waiting.

"Mama mia!" Luigi was shocked to see Boom Boom with Ice Ridley. "What-a happened in there?"

"Not much." Ice Ridley lied, then turned to Boom Boom. "Before we part ways, I was wondering if you could tell us where the Princess is being kept."

"Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom." Boom Boom explained.

"Bowser's Castle, huh." Ice Ridley muttered to himself. "I don't know why I would have expected somewhere else."

"Boom boom!" Boom Boom waved as he headed off.

"I supposed we should get going as well." Ice Ridley turned back to Luigi. "The Princess won't save herself. I mean, it would be convenient if she did, but…"

Ice Ridley briefly pondered what had become of his life.


	8. World 3-1 Stormy Seas Ahead

Samus sat back in the pilot's seat of her gunship, enjoying some take out as she flew back to her apartment after a brief trip to buy groceries on another planet. Money had been tight ever since the 'incident' that had left her unable to take on jobs from the federation. In fact, she was technically a wanted fugitive now, which made business much harder than it used to be. Still, she had been able to make a living for herself in the outer territories. Blowing up yet another planet, this time intentionally, had only increased her reputation as the greatest bounty hunter alive. Plus she had started to take up other forms of freelance work to pay the bills when she needed to. All in all, her life wasn't so bad. She had made new friends and was overall in a good place in her life. Apart from being a wanted criminal, anyway.

Of course, she wasn't really thinking about any of that at the moment. She was just concentrating on trying to eat with chopsticks. Or at least she was, until she was interrupted by her ship's computer.

" _You have an incoming call. Caller ID unknown."_

Samus jumped from the unexpected alert and nearly spilled noodles all over herself. She quickly put her food down out of view of the camera and reached down to answer the call. She froze right when she was about to press the button, however, as she suddenly remembered that she was still wearing a hoodie and sweat pants. Definitely not clothing that she wanted to be seen wearing by a potential client. Samus leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes for a moment in concentration. She opened them again once her power armor had materialized itself around her, then pressed the button to accept the incoming call.

"Is this Samus Aran?" A digital image of the caller appeared in a window on the ship's view screen.

"That depends. Who's asking?" Samus did her best to sound intimidating, which was something that she tended to have a knack for.

"Someone who needs someone else taken care of. And I hear you're the best man for the job."

Samus couldn't help but crack a smile. She always found it funny how people who only knew her by reputation always seemed to think that she was a man. Not that she particularly minded, considering that it just made it easier for her to go around without being recognized everywhere she went.

"If that's the case, then you should know that my services don't come cheap." Samus continued to play it cool.

"I can pay you handsomely. However, I believe that you will take this job regardless of the reward. Rumor has it that you and this particular bounty share a history together. A certain draconic space pirate."

"I'm listening."

* * *

"Well, now-a what?" Luigi turned to Ice Ridley expectantly.

Ice Ridley thought for a moment as he considered their options. The two found themselves standing before a long shoreline that stretched out as far as the eye could see in both directions. And Ice Ridley's eyes allowed him to see very far away. They had no apparent way of crossing the ocean that lied in their way but turning back now would render their entire journey so far pointless. In theory, Ice Ridley could fly over the water, carrying Luigi across the ocean in his arms. However, doing so would likely reveal that he wasn't Mario. Unless Mario could fly. Ice Ridley couldn't really rule anything out at this point but he figured that if Mario could fly, he wouldn't have fallen in that lava pit that Ridley pushed him into. Ice Ridley had never regretted killing anyone before and he certainly did not like the feeling.

It didn't seem like there was anything that they could do, unless they could find some way to magically _walk_ across the ocean. But obviously that wasn't an option. Unless…

Ice Ridley stared down at the water for a moment and opened his mouth. A cloud of cold mist formed between his jaws before he shot a blast of freezing ice at the water in front of him. The water froze into a large chunk of ice. Ice Ridley then took a cautious step onto the newly formed platform to see if it was stable enough to walk on. The ice proved slippery but he was able to keep his balance well enough. Ice Ridley then froze the next section of water with his frigid breath, extending the short pathway he was creating.

"I think I just found our way across." Ice Ridley said, turning back to Luigi.

"A-are you-a sure that's-a safe?" Luigi cautiously pressed his foot again the ice.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Ridley asked sarcastically.

"Well, no." Luigi looked resigned as he stepped up on to the ice and walked up behind Ridley.

Ice Ridley and Luigi then made their way across the ocean on the makeshift bridge that Ice Ridley continued to form as they went. It became increasingly difficult to stay on the narrow path as the waves picked up. The further they went the more turbulent the ocean water became. It wasn't long before Ice Ridley had to start raising the sides of the ice bridge to form a sort of railing to keep Luigi from being swept up in the waves. Luigi continued to stumble along behind the space dragon, shivering the entire way from the cold.

After what felt like several hours the sky began to get dark. At first it seemed to just be getting late but soon it became clear that a storm was coming. It wasn't much longer after that that the winds picked up and the waves rose ever higher. Ice Ridley attempted to raise the sides of his bridge even higher as he formed it to try and make a tunnel of sorts to protect them from the storm. It didn't work, however, as a particularly storm wave crashed against the ice behind then, breaking through the ice. The section of ice they were one became unstable, being tossed and turned violently by the storm. Luigi hit his head against a chunk of ice, knocking him out and causing him to fall into the water. Ice Ridley was able fish him out with his long claws and pull the green-clad plumber up above the surface. Carrying Luigi, Ice Ridley began to fly away as fast as he could. However, the violent winds made it hard on him and were soon joined by lightning.

What happened next was little more than a hazy blur in Ridley's normally impeccable memory, but what he could remember was a flash of lightning illuminating a large object off in the distance as a silhouette. Ice Ridley headed towards the object, thinking that it was an island where they could wait out the storm. The object proved not to be an island, however, but was in fact a large ship. Ice Ridley landed on the ship's hull, still cradling the unconscious Luigi in his arms.

Ice Ridley could see the ship's crew members working hard around him to keep the ship from capsizing. They were too busy to pay Ice Ridley any mind and he could barely make them out in the darkness and rain, but for some odd reason he couldn't help but think of the space pirates. Putting that thought aside, Ice Ridley hunkered down and did his belt to shelter Luigi from the elements as he waited for the storm to pass.

When the winds and the rain finally subsided, Ice Ridley opened his eyes and looked back up. Now that they were no longer busy with the storm, the crew members were now gathering around him curiously. He could see now that they appeared to be from a reptilian species that he had not seen on this planet before, coming in a variety of colors and bearing crocodilian traits.

Ice Ridley could hear a deep, raspy breathing come from behind him and turned to see the largest member of the ship's and their captain. He was a tall, fat, green one with a swollen left eye, wearing a bright red cape and a black tricorn hat marked with a skull and crossbones. A symbol which the meaning of seemed to remain a constant throughout the universe. These were pirates.

"It would appear that we have ourselves a couple of stowaways." The captain's voice remained unsettlingly calm between his heavy, yet steady breaths. "And just what may ye be doing on my ship?"

"We just needed a place to rest during that storm." Ice Ridley explained.

"Then I suggest ye be going now." The captain said. "Return from whence ye came, sea demon."

"I could do that." Ice Ridley grinned. "Or you could grant us safe passage to our destination."

"And just why would we be doing that just now?"

"Because from the looks of it you appear to be a crew of pirates, which means that you're likely here in search of some kind of treasure or other prize. I happen to be quite skilled at, well, everything really, but especially acquiring ill-gotten goods."

The captain stared at Ice Ridley intently, as if sizing him up. After a long moment of near silence, apart from the captain's constant breathing, he finally grinned and drummed one of clawed hands against his gold-plated belly.

"Argh, I like you're style, matey. As it happens we happen to be after a particularly elusive prize known as the Crystal Coconut, said to be hidden somewhere in the isles nearby. If'n ye help us find it, we'll sail ye anywhere ye be need'n ta go."

Ridley smiled and the two reptilian pirates shook hands. "Then we have a deal. But if I'll be working for you then I'll need to know my Captain's name, of course."

"Aye, I be known as Kaptain K. Rool. And this ship here be the Gangplank Galleon."

"And a fine ship it is, 'Kaptain'. Now let's go get that Crystal Coconut."


	9. World 3-2 The Isle del Bongo

Ice Ridley stood atop the Gangplank Galleon's bow, watching as a small island drew closer into view up ahead. Kaptain K. Rool walked up behind him with a small telescope, holding it up to his good eye to take a closer look.

"The Isle del Bongo." The Kremling Kaptain said between deep, raspy breaths. "The last known resting place of the Crystal Coconut."

"So what exactly is this Crystal Coconut thing that we're after?" Ice Ridley asked.

"It be an item of supreme magical power, said to give whoever possesses it power over time itself." Kaptain K. Rool explained. "It was used by my ancestor King K. Rumm to rule over the ancient civilization of Kremlantis long ago. That is, until it was stolen from him by a pirate what went by the name o' Kaptain Skurvy. It was thought to have been lost forever 'til me crew and I had a run-in with another pirate crew not long ago, led by none other than a descendant o' Kaptain Skurvy's what went by the same name. We stole a map from 'im what led us here."

"Control over time…" Ice Ridley repeated. Just a few days ago he would have considered that to be out of the realm of possibility. Yet given all of the weird things he had seen and experienced lately it now felt like something that could really exist.

"Aye." Kaptain K. Rool nodded. "An' once I get me that Crystal Coconut, I be usin' it ta take revenge against me rival and Donkey Kong Island will at long last be mine."

Ice Ridley had no interest in that, instead focusing on how he would be able to betray and take the Crystal Coconut for himself when they found it. With the power to control time, he could go back to when this whole mess had started and show that stupid space witch a piece of his mind! Or better yet, go back even further to kill the Hunter before she ever crossed paths with the Space Pirates! With that power, he could seize control the entire Space Pirate organization, destroy the Galactic Federation and rule the known universe with an iron claw! Nothing would be able to stand in his way to total domination!

That was all that Ice Ridley could think about until they had reached the island. He and Kaptain K. Rool formed the landing party along with three members of K. Rool's crew, a bulky brown Kremling in a green helmet, a muscle-bound blue one wearing a camouflage tank top and pants, and an even more muscular blue one with white hair and a black leather jacket. Between the three of them, they seemed to share about one person's worth of brains.

"Alrighty, krew!" The Kaptain stretched his arms out as he addressed the others. "Ye know what we be here for, so let's go get that Crystal Coconut!"

K. Rool strutted into the jungle that seemed to spread across most of the moderately-sized island, with the other Kremlings and Ice Ridley following behind him. They traveled a route through the jungle indicated by the old map Kaptain K. Rool held, until they were stopped by a deep crevice that blocked their way. The remains of a rope bridge were still visible at each end, but the bridge had collapsed long ago.

"Well, men." K. Rool rolled up the map and tucked it in his belt. "We be need'n a way 'cross this here bridge. Anyone be havin' any ideas for once?"

"Kersplat!" The white-haired Kremling in the leather jacket yelled and punched a tree.

"Good idea." The camouflage-wearing Kremling said. "I'll help you with that."

Together, the two blue reptiles were able to knock down the large tree through sheer force. The tree fell towards the crevice to form a makeshift bridge for them to all walk across. Unfortunately, the tree they had chosen wasn't quite tall enough to work and didn't reach the other side, sliding into the crevice and falling into the abyss below instead.

"Huh." The Kremling in the helmet grunted. "Maybe try again?"

"Before you do that, I think I have another idea." Ice Ridley stopped them and turned to the crevice.

Ice Ridley used his frigid breath to freeze the edge of the crevice and from there began to build a bridge of ice that led across it. He made sure to make the bridge as wide and deep as he could so that it would be able to support the weight of his rather bulky temporary companions.

"Aye, very good." The Kremling Kaptain marched across the bridge after Ice Ridley, swinging his arms from side to side as he went. Ice Ridley noticed that the Kaptain's steps grew oddly heavy as he had almost finished making his way across, almost like he was trying to discretely stomp on the ice.

The brown Kremling made his way across the bridge next without any issues, followed by the blue Kremling in the tank top. That just left the one in the leather jacket still on the other side, eyeing the bridge cautiously through his sunglasses.

"Kersplat?" The big blue reptile stepped cautiously onto the ice. It was clear that he wasn't comfortable walking on it, but he tried. The big blue Kremling proceeded slowly and carefully across the ice, doing his best not to slip and fall to his doom below. However, his best proved not to be good enough. He took one wrong step and his right foot slipped out from under him, causing him to fall forward onto the bridge. At first, it seemed that he was fine and he started to get back up, but then the ice below him began to crack.

Ice Ridley took a step forward, preparing to grab the Kremling and fly him back to safety. However, he was stopped by a powerful grip from a clawed hand on his shoulder and could hear Kaptain K. Rool's distinctive breathing just beside him. He turned to the Kaptain, who shook his head while trying to hide a sly grin. Ice Ridley turned back just in time to see the bridge give way.

"Kersplaaaaaaaaaat!" The leather-clad Kremling screamed as he fell to his doom.

"No!" The other blue Kremling bent over the side of the cliff and reached his hand out as if to reach for his fallen comrade. But of course, it was far too late to do anything.

"I be sorry for your loss, Krusha." The Kaptain walked up to his distressed Kremling. "Your cousin 'twas a fine Krem. Alas, if only there had been somethin' we coulda' done ta save him."

"This was your fault!" Krusha stood up and turned around, pointing an accusatory finger at Ice Ridley. "You're stupid bridge wasn't good enough!"

"It should have held." Ice Ridley defended himself. "I made sure that it would be strong enough."

"Aye, that tragedy be no one's fault." K. Rool said as he pulled his map back out. "Now, must be movin' on. It be what he would 'ave wanted."

With that, the Kaptain proceeded along the way that the map indicated they should go. The others begrudgingly followed him, though Krusha made a gesture to indicate that he was watching Ice Ridley.

The trail led them to the base of a snow-capped mountain. A tunnel of some sort had been carved into it, which the map indicated would lead straight to the resting place of the Crystal Coconut. In theory, they were mere moments away from their prize.

"This be it." Kaptain K. Rool rolled up the map again and tucked it back in his belt. "Just a little further and we've got it."

Just then a large white object fell to the ground in front of them with a massive thump, sending a shockwave through the area and nearly knocking Ice Ridley and the Kremlings off their feet. At first, it almost seemed to have been a large snowball that had simply rolled off the mountain. But snow doesn't stand up.

"Get off my island!" The large, ape-like creature yelled as it banged its clenched fists against its chest wildly and bore its sharp white teeth.

"It can't be…" The Kaptain muttered under his loud breath. "Who be ye?"

"I'm Eddie! The mean old Yeti! Now go away and leave me alone!"

Eddie slapped the ground with his impressively-sized hands, creating another shockwave that sent all three Kremlings flying back. Ice Ridley was able to hold his ground only by digging his claws into the dirt just in time and retaliated by attacking with his ice breath. The cold didn't bother Eddie, who simply shrugged off the frost and charged forward with his fist drawn back, ready to punch Ice Ridley in the face with all of his strength. However, the punch never made contact as the yeti was sent flying back by an explosive blast. Ice Ridley turned to see what had caused the explosion and saw Krusha holding a large wooden bazooka that he hadn't noticed the big blue Kremlin carrying earlier.

"I'll hold him off!" Krusha yelled to the others as he loaded what appeared to be an orange into the bazooka. "You go get that Coconut!"

Kaptain K. Rool ran past Krusha towards the tunnel, followed by the brown Kremling. Eddie the mean old Yeti leaped toward them to attack but was struck by another blast from Krusha's makeshift weapon, allowing the two Kremlings to make it inside.

Ice Ridley turned to Krusha. "Are you sure you've got this? I can help you fight."

"No!" Krusha loaded his bazooka with another orange. "I've got this. You need to make sure that the Kaptain and Klump get that Crystal Coconut safely. I'm not losing another comrade today!"

"Right." Ice Ridley gave Krusha a space pirate salute in honor of his bravery before sprinting into the tunnel to catch up with the others. As he entered, he could hear Krusha fire another blast.

"This is for Kersplat!"

Ice Ridley sprinted through the tunnel. Although upon further inspection it was actually a large stone hallway, leading into some sort of ancient temple. He slowed down as he reached the main chamber, where Kaptain K. Rool stood in front of a large stone idol built into the far wall. They had reached a dead end, with no sign of the Crystal Coconut in sight. Or any sign of Klump, for that matter. There was, however, fresh blood dripping from the mouth of the idol.

"What happened?" Ice Ridley asked cautiously, already suspecting what had taken place mere moments before he arrived.

"Oh, it be a tragedy." Kaptain K. Rool turned to Ice Ridley. "The idol demanded a sacrifice to proceed to the chamber of the Crystal Coconut. Klump offered himself up to the idol, even though I begged him not to, but it was too late."

The Kaptain needed to work on his acting skills. It was obvious to Ice Ridley that he was lying about the Kremling's willingness to give his own life. Before he could confront K. Rool about it, however, the room began to shake violently. The wall containing the idol opened up, revealing the way into a large volcanic chamber. A narrow bridge led to a naturally formed pillar in the center of the area. A stone altar sat upon the pillar, upon which the Crystal Coconut rested.

Before Ice Ridley had a chance to react, Kaptain K. Rool made a mad dash for the magical artifact. Ice Ridley sprang into action, chasing the pirate. But he was too late. K. Rool managed to grab the Crystal Coconut before Ice Ridley was able to catch up to him.

There was a blinding flash of light and Ice Ridley was sent flying back into the temple. He got up again and slowly crawled his way back towards the altar, where K. Rool was now levitating above the ground. What appeared to be white lightning crackled from his body as he held the Crystal Coconut as if to admire it.

"At last!" K. Rool's ominous breathing now seemed louder than ever, echoes through the volcanic chamber and sending a chill down Ice Ridley's spine. "The Crystal Coconut is mine!"


	10. World 3-3 vs King K Rool

"I suppose I should thank ye fer helping me get this far." Kaptain K. Rool faced away from Ice Ridley, his face turned slightly to the side so that he could look at the space dragon from the corner of his eye over his shoulder, as he held the Crystal Coconut in front of his face with his right claw while his left claw was clasped firmly around his right bicep. "After all, I would not 'ave been able to off the members of me krew before they could 'ave the chance ta beat me to the Crystal Coconut if'n you weren't 'ere ta draw their suspicions away from me."

Ice Ridley rose back to his feet and braced himself for a fight. He realized now that the Kaptain hadn't asked him to help get the Crystal Coconut so that he could lend a helping hand as a fellow pirate. Ice Ridley was just a convenient scapegoat so that K. Rool could pick off his own loyal followers. And for what? From what Ice Ridley had seen, the Kaptain's crew members had been completely loyal to him. It didn't seem like there was any reason for him to turn on them. Then again, if K. Rool had known that a sacrifice would be necessary then it may have been so that they wouldn't turn on him when he tried to sacrifice one of them for this power. Of course, it would have been better for them to have simply ganged up on Ice Ridley and use him as the sacrifice. Ice Ridley felt that he could have easily overpowered them, but they wouldn't have thought that. Of course, there may have been more to this than Ice Ridley knew.

"So what do you intend to do now?" Ice Ridley asked the Kaptain.

"I thought that would be obvious." K. Rool replied. "I be takin' over the world with this power. But first, I be needin' ta eliminate any potential threats ta me reign."

"And by potential threats, you would mean me, right Kaptain?"

"Aye. But I believe it be time ta put me pirating days behind me and return to me old title. You may call me King K. Rool, the Konqueror." K. Rool's black tricorn hat suddenly burned away to nothing in white fire and a golden crown appeared on his head.

"That sounds quite presumptuous." Ice Ridley said sarcastically.

"Be this presumptuous?"

K. Rool snapped his fingers and suddenly appeared directly in front of Ice Ridley, mere inches away from his face. Ice Ridley tried to back away but found himself unable to move before K. Rool backhanded him across the face so hard that he was sent flying into the cavern wall, knocking Mario's cap off his head in the process. Ridley could feel his ice power be knocked out of him with the hit.

Ridley pulled himself out of the rock wall with a grown. He couldn't remember the last time he had taken a hit that strong. He was looking forward to knocking the smug grin off the kremling's face. He kicked off the wall and charged through the air, ready to tackle King K. Rool. However, when he had reached around half way there he suddenly found the obese reptile above him, body slamming Ridley with his enormous golden belly. Ridley was sent tumbling down towards the lava below. That is, until King K. Rool suddenly came up from under him, hitting Ridley in the throat with a strong uppercut, then head-butting him back down. Ridley fell the rest of the way down completely paralyzed before sinking into the lava. The last thing he saw before being completely submerged was K. Rool floating in the air, laughing.

Ridley noted the irony of his current situation. Knocking someone into lava like this is what had gotten him into this situation in the first place. Now it was his turn to be the on the receiving end. Fortunately for Ridley, being submerged in lava had no negative effects on him. If anything he actually kind of enjoyed it. All he had to do now was wait until K. Rool left, thinking that Ridley had perished. Then he could find a way to ambush the Kremling King and take the Crystal Coconut for himself. Or at least, that's what he thought would happen.

King K. Rool used the Crystal Coconut to reverse time, causing Ridley to rise back up out of the lava and into the air in front of him. K. Rool then grabbed Ridley by the neck, slammed him against the wall and scraping him against it before tossing him aside. Ridley could vaguely remember using a similar trick before, minus the time manipulation part.

Ridley found himself lying on the ground next to the pedestal where the Crystal Coconut had been kept. King K. Rool landed on the bridge leading back to the temple and fired a blast of white lightning at Ridley. Ridley did his best to shrug off the attack and stood up straight, rolling his shoulders back before walking towards the Kremling King.

"Ye be approaching me?" King K. Rool was impressed by Ridley's tenacity and audacity.

"Well, I can't beat the life out of you without getting closer." Ridley bluffed, knowing that there was no way he could take on King K. Rool in a straight forward battle, hoping that mind games might tip the scale slightly more in his favor.

Ridley and King K. Rool both strutted towards each other, both trying to intimidate the other with their posturing. But then King K. Rool was suddenly hit in the back with an explosive blast, knocking onto his face and sending the Crystal Coconut flying out of his grasp. The powerful magical artifact landed at the feat of Krusha, who stood at the chamber's entrance holding his still-smoking bazooka. Tears streamed down the Kremlings pained face.

"Krusha?" King K. Rool exclaimed, alarmed by his subordinate's unexpected appearance. "What be ye doing here? How long have ye been here?"

"I was able to knock the yeti out soon after you left, so I hurried to catch up with you." Krusha's voice was strained. "Y-you killed them. Klump and Kersplat. You murdered them and you were going to do the same to me!"

"N-no I didn't." King K. Rool lied as he crawled slowly towards Krusha. "It was him. Now give me the Crystal Coconut so that I can avenge them and we can leave together."

"I heard you!" Krusha yelled. "I heard you say what you did!"

King K. Rool froze. This was not a part of his plan. Neither was Krusha picking up the Crystal Coconut.

"This thing can control time, right?" Krusha asked as electricity crackled around him. "Does that mean I can use it to bring them back?"

"Nooo!" King K. Rool suddenly rushed toward Krusha on all fours and tried to tackle him. He was able to knock the Crystal Coconut from Krusha's hand and seize it for his own, but not before Klump and Kersplat appeared beside Krusha.

"Kaptain?" Klump scratched his head, confused as to what was going on.

"Kersplat?" Kersplat was even more confused.

"Ye insolent fools!" King K. Rool rose from the ground and turned to face his former subordinates. "Prepare to face ye maker!"

King K. Rool prepared to take out all three kremlings in a single blow. Unfortunately for him, he had lost track out Ridley while distracted, who tackled him from the side. King K. Rool and Ridley both slammed into the side of the cave while the blast of chronal energy that was meant to obliterate the three kremlings missed its target, restoring a section of damaged temple wall and bringing a very confused orangutan monk back to life in the process. The orangutan quickly ran off in fright.

King K. Rool tossed Ridley away and regained his composure. They both hovered in the air for a moment, staring each other down until King K. Rool grabbed Ridley by the neck telekinetically. Blinded by rage, he tried to strange Ridley. However, King K. Rool failed to realize that he was still within slashing range of Ridley's tail. The strike to his armored belly was enough to force King K. Rool to release his hold on Ridley, who dove down and flew away from him. Furious, King K. Rool froze time long enough to fly ahead of the space pirate so that when time resumed Ridley flew face first into the king's fist. As Ridley fell away, K. Rool then pulled a blunderbuss seemingly out of nowhere and fired a cannonball at Ridley, causing him to be sent flying into the stone pillar in the center of the room.

With Ridley seemingly incapacitated and falling back into the lava, King K. Rool turned back towards his subordinates. He had been distracted long enough by Ridley for Krusha to have explained the situation to the others by the time that the king flew back up to the bridge to face them. Klump through a green citrus grenade at King K. Rool, who stopped the explosive fruit in midair with a wave of his free hand.

"Did ye really think that would work on me, King K. Rool?" He asked them mockingly as he slowly walked up to them.

Krusha charged at King K. Rool with his arms outstretched but the king merely froze Krusha in time. Kersplat jumped over Krusha to slam into K. Rool with his fist, only to be frozen as well. King K. Rool laughed at their failed attempt at attacking him, causing him to miss the second citrus grenade that rolled past Krusha's feet and went off. King K. Rool was knocked back into the first one right as it was unfrozen due to his concentration being thrown off, the blast sending him headfirst into Krusha and Kersplat's combined attack.

Before King K. Rool even realized what had happened, he found himself hurtling down into the lava below. This wouldn't be an issue for him though, as all he had to do was use the power of the Crystal Coconut and fly back up to show those traitors what they get for trying to defy him. He raised the Crystal Coconut up but before he could activate its power again he found himself unexpectedly roundhouse kicked in the gut by Ridley. The force of the blow knocked the Crystal Coconut out of his hand, causing both it and King K. Rool to fall into the lava. As the Kremling King sank into the lava, his last action was to shake his fist in a futile gesture of rage at his defeat. Then he was gone.

Ridley flew back up beside the altar where the Crystal Coconut had rested. He found Mario's hat lying on the ground as he walked over to where the three Kremlings were waiting on the bridge and picked up the forsaken object to place back on his head. "And I believe that is the end of that. I just hope there aren't any more unexpected surprises."

"Way to go!" Krusha slapped a claw hard against Ridley's back. "We did it!"

"Kersplat!" Kersplat pumped both of his fists into the air.

"It's hard to believe that the Kaptain would have turned on us like that." Klump took off his helmet as he looked down at the lake of lava below them.

Ridley was surprised by this reaction. In his mind, being betrayed by the members of your own crew, especially your higher-ups, was to be expected. He himself had been backstabbed quite a few times, though not nearly as much as he had done the betraying. Yet now that he thought about it, the entire time he had been with them these pirates seemed far closer than he had ever seen in a pirate crew before. If anything they seemed almost like… a family? Ridley could never really grasp the concept of family before, yet somehow he could recognize that that's what these Kremlings were to each other. And they seemed to be able to function much more efficiently together than the Space Pirates ever had. Perhaps he had to rethink his methods of command.

"But now that the Kaptain K. Rool's gone, the Gangplank Galleon will need a new kaptain." Klump said as they all walked back out of the lava-filled cavern. "And I think that will be you, Krusha."

"What?" Krusha was thrown off guard by this. "But you were the first mate, you should be the new Kaptain!"

"No." Klump shook his head. "I let my guard down and was killed for it. You're the one who managed to bring us back and without you, we never could have stopped the Kaptain. The position should go to you."

"Kersplat!"

"You're right." Klump responded to Kersplat's suggestion that they share the position. "Perhaps we could do that."

"The Gangplank Galleon has never had two kaptains before." Krusha noted. "How would that even work?"

"We can make it work." Klump rested his claw on Krusha's shoulder.

Ridley stretched his mouth wide in a loud yawn. The trip back to the ship proved to be fortunately uneventful. When they were finally aboard the Gangplank Galleon once again, they were greeted by a lot of confused Kremlings. It was hard for them to accept what they were told had happened and they all mourned the loss of their kaptain, even despite his betrayal. Ridley wondered if his own crew would have a similar reaction if he never returned to them. No, they would probably celebrate. No one would mourn for Ridley if he were gone for good. No one would miss him. The universe would likely be a far better place without him.

This train of thought filled Ridley with feelings he could not recognize. Regret? Sadness? Depression? Ridley couldn't believe what was happening to him. What was this stupid planet doing to him? Could he be growing soft? Ridley knew that he needed to leave this planet and return to his old life as soon as possible. But he couldn't do so until the space witch found a way to bring Mario back to life or else there was no telling what she would do to him. But if he wasn't careful he could find himself a changed space dragon by the time he was finally able to leave. But what would he have changed into? Ridley was afraid to find out, and there were very few things that Ridley feared.


	11. World 4-1 Welcome to Yoshi's Island

Rosalina slammed the book she was just looking through shut. She tossed it down on a pile of old tomes she had already gone through and slumped back in the armchair in the Comet Observatory's library. She waved her wand lazily through the air and another ancient grimoire from her collection came flying up to her. She grabbed the book and skimmed through it quickly before tossing it in the pile when she didn't find what she was looking for.

"All of the knowledge in the known universe in this library and yet not a single passage on how to bring back the dead without turning them into some kind of a monster in the process." The matriarch of the stars sighed loudly.

"More wine, Mother?" A yellow Luma wearing a black bowtie floated up to Rosalina, carrying a bottle of wine older than most planets and an empty glass on a silver tray.

Rosalina grabbed the bottle and drank the whole thing. She then tapped the now empty bottle with her wand, causing it to refill itself. She had already gone through six other bottles that morning and she really didn't feel like wasting any more of her collection. Most of the alcohol she had already consumed was potent enough to kill a normal human before they could finish off one bottle, yet as it happened she was barely even drunk.

With another swish of her wand, a book flew off of one of the shelves and came to a stop in front of her. Rosalina set the wine bottle down on her side table and grabbed the floating book.

"Tomegathericon." She read the title aloud. "Sounds promising."

She opened up the black tome and began reading through it, searching for anything that could possibly help her resurrect Mario. After a while, she sighed and slammed the book shut.

"I don't _want_ to create a zombie _or_ summon a demon!" She shouted as she stood up and threw the dark spellbook against the far wall. "I just want to bring someone back to life as they were! How is it that there are so many spells and potions designed to turn the dead into monsters and yet not a single one that can just bring them back normally?"

Rosalina picked the wine bottle back up and downed its contents before tossing the bottle aside. She was done trying to find a resurrection spell. With luck, time magic would be more helpful.

* * *

Luigi woke up not knowing where he was. He found himself lying on a bed in a small wooden room. The being he believed to be his brother was leaning against the far wall with his arms folded and his eyes closed. Judging from the way the whole room seemed to rock back and forth, and the sounds that Luigi could hear outside, he thought that they must be on a boat.

"What's-a going on, Mario?" Luigi asked Ridley. "Where are-a we?"

"So you're finally awake." Ridley unfolded his arms and opened his eyes. "I managed to make a deal with some pirates for a ride on their ship."

"Pirates?" Luigi was alarmed and concerned by this.

"Relax." Ridley didn't mean for it to come out as an order. "They're fine."

"I don't-a know about-a this." Luigi voiced his doubts. "But-a if you-a trust them then I-a guess I-a will, too. If it-a means getting a ride to-a Dark Land, then I-a guess we-a can't be-a too picky."

"Yes." Ridley suddenly realized that he did not actually know where they were supposed to be going and had not negotiated _where_ the Kremlings would drop them off. For all he knew, they were headed in the opposite direction than where they wanted to go. Then again, it would be easy to shift the blame onto the Kremlings so that Luigi wouldn't know that it was Ridley who had made the mistake.

The door opened and a lower ranking member of the Krew stepped inside. Luigi jumped upon seeing the green crocodile-person.

"The Kaptainsss want you on deck." The Kremling said. "They sssaid we're ready to drop you off, now."

"That was faster than I was expecting." Ridley commented.

Ridley and Luigi followed the Kremling up onto the Gangplank Galleon's deck, where Klump, Krusha and Kersplat were waiting along with several other members of the krew. All of the reptilian pirates stood at attention as Ridley and Luigi stepped out into the sunlight.

"It has been an honor." Kaptain Klump saluted.

"The honor was mine." Ridley returned the solute.

"I hope that we can work together again someday." Kaptain Krusha walked up to Ridley and they shook hands.

"Kersplat!" Kersplat seemed like he was on the verge of tears, though it was hard to tell through his sunglasses.

"Well, here you go." Klump gestured towards the gangplank, which led down to a sandy coastline. "We wish you a safe journey."

"To you as well." Ridley gave another salute before grabbing Luigi by the shoulder and hurrying down to the beach before the plumber could object to anything.

"You-a know that this isn't-a Dark Land, right-a Mario?" Luigi asked once they were safely on the ground and Ridley released his grasp.

"Of course I know that." Ridley didn't like that he was no automatically responding to the name Mario. "But do you really want to argue with pirates?"

"I, uh… guess not." Luigi relented.

"We'll find another ship to get a ride on." Ridley whispered as he waved back at the Gangplank Galleon as the Kremling Krew sailed off. "Preferably one with less dangerous company."

Ridley felt a twinge of guilt at making the pirate crew he had grown to actually like seem much worse than they were. It wasn't a feeling that Ridley was familiar with and certainly not one that he liked. Then again, considering they were pirates, talking about them like that would probably be good for their reputation.

"Hey, where do you-a think we are?" Luigi asked.

"I don't know." Ridley looked around. There was a sprawling jungle in front of them, with a few tall, snow-capped mountains off in the distance. The topography reminded Ridley of the Isle del Bongo, though it was different enough to assure Ridley that the Kremling Krew hadn't simply dropped them off back there.

A bush started to rustle in front of them. Ridley assumed a defensive position, preparing for an attack. However, the creature that emerged from the jungle did not seem to be hostile. The green saurian creature was roughly the size of Luigi, stood in an upright position that exposed its white belly, and was wearing a pair of orange boots.

"Yoshi?" Luigi called out to the small dinosaur in surprise.

"Luigi! Mario!" Yoshi seemed happy to see them, though like most beings that Ridley had met since coming to this planet it mistook Ridley for Mario. "What brings you to Yoshi's Island?"

"I'm-a not really-a sure on that-a, myself." Luigi shrugged.

"We're here." Ridley snapped. "Let's just leave it at that and move on. So how can we get to Dark Land from here?"

"Dark Land? Well, I think you'd have to get back on that ship that just dropped you off." Yoshi peered over Luigi's shoulder at the Gangplank Galleon, which was quickly sailing out of view.

"Well, clearly that's not an option." Ridley didn't bother turning around. Even if the pirate ship was still close enough that they could call it back, it would be too embarrassing to have to explain his mistake. Embarrassment was another new sensation that Ridley already hated. "What other ways are there off of this island?"

Yoshi thought for a moment. "Well, I guess you take the northern bridge up to Dinosaur Land. You might be able to find a boat or something there."

"Then I guess we'll be doing that."

"It will be quite the journey to take by foot, so I'll help you get there. You're too heavy for me to carry you both, though." Yoshi thought for a moment. "Ooh! I know! I'll go get my cousin. We'll meet up at the bridge. You remember how to get there, right?"

"Sure." Ridley lied, wanting to take a break from dealing with the overly cheerful dinosaur.

"See you!" Yoshi ran off back into the jungle, leaving Ridley and Luigi alone.

"It's-a been quite a while since we've-a been here." Luigi pointed out. "Do you-a really remember the way?"

"Of course." Ridley assured the green-clad plumber. "But before that, I want to test your brain a bit. If its morning right now, then which direction is the sun in."

"East, of-a course." Luigi replied.

"Exactly." Ridley pointed towards the sun, then inwards towards the Yoshi's Island. "And that means that we're at the southern edge of the island and that way is north. All we have to do is go this way in order to get there."

"Oh, that's-a smart." Luigi nodded. "So let's-a go!"


	12. World 4-2 Crossing Dinosaur Land

Ridley and Luigi walked past the wreckage of what appeared to have once been a castle of some kind. Though now it was little more than a large pile of rubble. They could see the ocean off in the distance and as they walked they could see a wooden bridge that went across it over to a much larger body of land than the island they were currently on.

"That must be it." Ridley said they drew closer.

"We-a certainly made-a good time, didn't we Mario?" Luigi nearly tripped over a large chunk of stone. "It looks-a like we're-a even going to make it there-a before Yoshi!"

"Yes, well, he did say he was going to get his comrade or something." Ridley pointed out. "It makes sense that he would take a bit longer to get here."

"True." Luigi agreed.

It didn't take much longer for the two to reach the bridge where they were to wait for the talking green dinosaur. Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long before Yoshi emerged from the jungle to greet them.

"Hey, there!" Yoshi exclaimed as he walked up to the pair. "I hope we didn't keep you waiting too long."

"Where is-a your buddy?" Luigi asked, seeing that Yoshi appeared to be alone.

"Why, he's right behind me…" Yoshi turned around to see that there was no one there. "Er, he was."

"Wait up!" A voice called from the jungle.

A rather bulky yellow creature of the same species as Yoshi ran out of the bushes. The heavy-set dinosaur was breathing heavily and had to stop to catch his breath once he caught up to them.

"This is my cousin, Roshi." Yoshi said, gesturing to his cousin with one hand while placing the other over his eyes. "He, uh, needs to get out more."

"I haven't had to run like that in ages." Roshi said before finally looking up. "Oh, wow! You're _the_ Mario! I'm such a huge fan."

Roshi walked up to Ridley and grabbed his taloned hand, shaking it vigorously.

"Uh, yes, yes I am." Ridley lied.

"And you must be his brother, Lugia!" Roshi turned to Luigi.

"It's-a Luigi, actually." The green-clad plumber corrected him.

"Oh, sorry."

"A~any way…" Yoshi tried to turn their attention back to himself. "Now that introductions have been made we should probably get going. Roshi and I will give you two a lift to Dinosaur Land to look for a boat, so hop on."

Yoshi squatted down for Ridley to climb onto his back. Ridley, however, chose to get onto Roshi's back instead, feeling his bulkier frame would make it easier for him to carry Ridley than it would be for Yoshi.

"Wait, you're riding _him_?" Yoshi asked with a hint of jealousy.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Ridley asked coldly.

"Um… no, I guess not." Yoshi looked like he had said something he didn't mean to say as Luigi took a seat on his saddle.

"Then I believe that means we should get going."

"R-right." Yoshi turned to the bridge and started running, making sure to go slow enough for his non-athletic cousin to keep up with him comfortably.

"I can't believe that I actually get to give _the_ Mario a ride." Roshi practically giggled, his prior fatigue washed away by the excitement of being able to meet his hero.

So the two Yoshisaurs made their way across the bridge to Dinosaur Land. Fortunately, Yoshi's Island wasn't too far from the mainland and it didn't take too long before they were rushing through the open fields of Donut Plains. They made their way north as they passed through the grassy fields that made up the region.

After a while, they passed by a short hill, upon which stood a small orange reptilian creature wearing a shimmering red and yellow cape. The creature ran forward and leaped through the air, somehow flying straight towards Yoshi. Luigi jumped off of Yoshi's back and landed on the flying creature midair, knocking it into the ground so hard that a pale orange feather popped out of it. Luigi grabbed the feather, which vanished as a yellow cape suddenly appeared on Luigi's back. Cape Luigi was then able to glide back down onto Yoshi's back to continue riding the green dinosaur. Ridley had learned not to question things by this point.

The group eventually reached the northeastern edge of the plains without having seen any signs of even a single boat along the distant shoreline. As such, they decided to move on to some of the other areas of Dinosaur land. However, in order to progress any further, they would have to pass through Vanilla Dome.

Yoshi and Roshi ran up to a set of big, sky blue doors which marked the entrance leading inside the hollowed out mountain. Cape Luigi hopped off of Yoshi's back so Ridley followed his lead and climbed off Roshi's back. The chubby yellow dinosaur immediately sat down on the cool grass and began panting heavily.

"Woo, boy." Roshi said. "That was… the most exercise… I've had in… weeks…"

"Yeah, and who's fault is that?" Yoshi whispered while examining the heavy doors that blocked their path, quietly enough that Ridley was the only one to hear the remark.

Cape Luigi stretched his back and looked out over the sea. He could see Chocolate Island across the ocean, the barren brown landmass standing out heavily against the deep blue water. His attention was more drawn to a large and rather distinctive pile of rocks emerging from waves, a bit closer than the island. While it was not obvious from that angle, Cape Luigi knew that the rocks formed into the likeness of King Bowser.

"It looks like-a the entrance to the-a Valley of Bowser is-a still standing." Cape Luigi commented to Ridley. "I had-a hoped that it-a would have collapsed or-a something by now."

"Yes." Ridley nodded like he knew what Luigi was talking about.

"Are you guys going to help me get this thing open, or what?" Yoshi called out while trying to force one of the doors open. "I don't think that I can do this on my own."

"We'll-a be right there." Luigi turned and ran up beside Yoshi to help push.

Yoshi and Cape Luigi pushed against the door as hard as they could but it wouldn't budge. Ridley walked up to the other door and spotted a small handle on it, which he grabbed and began to pull on. Putting a fair amount of strength into it, Ridley was able to pull the door open wide enough for them to be able to go through, which caused Yoshi and Cape Luigi to both look embarrassed.

"Yeah, I guess it helps if you open it the right way." Yoshi scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

Roshi finally worked up enough strength to get back onto his feet and walked over to the others. Yoshi was the first to enter the Vanilla Dome, followed by Luigi and Roshi. Ridley took a step to walk in after them when he froze, looking up at the sky just around the side of the mountain.

"What's-a wrong, Mario?" Luigi asked him.

"Nothing." Ridley turned his attention back to the others and went in after them. "I just thought I saw something."

The inside of the mountain proved to be rather bright for a cave. Sunlight filtered down from a large hole in the ceiling up above and reflected off of the walls to illuminate the whole area. Yoshi led the others along a path that could either take them up to a tunnel that would lead them out of the cave or up to the very top of the cave, depending on which way they went. When they reached the fork in the road that would determine which way they would go, Yoshi turned right to head towards the tunnel. However, Ridley chose to stop for a moment.

"You go on ahead, I'll catch up." Ridley said.

"What's-a wrong?" Luigi asked him.

"Um…" Ridley tried to think of a believable excuse to leave the group for a while. "I must urinate."

"Oh, okay." Luigi wasn't sure how to respond to that.

Ridley ducked behind a rock and waited for the others to get back on their way. He didn't actually have to relieve himself, of course. Unlike most creatures he was able to use 100% of all biomass he consumed, meaning that he did not produce waste like other lifeforms. Once he was sure that the others were far enough away that they wouldn't spot him, Ridley rushed up to the cavern wall and climbed up the side of the cave as quickly as he could. When he reached the ceiling, he jumped off and flew up the hole that led outside. He landed on the ground on top of the mountain and looked around wildly. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary other than the wreckage of another fortress, sitting in the middle of a river that cascaded down the mountainside. Ridley continued to examine his surroundings closely until he was sure that there was nothing there. Whatever he thought he saw earlier must have just been a trick of the light or something. There was no way that it could have been what he thought he had seen.

He turned to head back down into the Vanilla Dome to catch up with the others when a small Hunter-class gunship flew up from behind the mountainside. It appeared to be of Federation design, though it clearly had a lot of non-regulation modifications made to it. The yellow and red paint job was scratched and chipped away in places which showed off hints of purple and gray underneath. Ridley had never seen this ship before but knew at once that there was only one being in the galaxy that it could have belonged to. Ridley had been dreading this moment for a while now, ever since he had recovered from his last defeat on Planet Zebes. The Hunter was here.

Ridley barely had time to react before a barrage of heavy missiles was fired at him. He was just able to dodge them before they pelted the mountainside. He knew that the concussive blasts would have sent huge tremors running through the cave below. If he didn't find a way to either end the fight quickly or move it away from here, the others would be in trouble. Ridley did not know why that was his primary concern at the moment when his own life was in danger, particularly while he was in his current diminutive state. For all Ridley knew, his regenerative ability wouldn't work properly if he was injured while in this shrunken down form, meaning that if the Hunter managed to finish him off now, it was possible he could be gone for good.

Fortunately, rather than fire another barrage of missiles at him, the gunship flew off out of sight. However, this must have meant that the ship was meant to act as nothing more than a decoy. Ridley quickly jumped to the side, narrowly dodging an Ice Beam fired at him from behind. As Ridley rolled back onto his feet, he turned around to face his attacker. A roughly humanoid figure jumped out from the ruined fortress and landed on the ground a few yards away from Ridley. The design of the Hunter's armor was different than Ridley remembered, appearing as if the bulkier sections of the armor had been removed and replaced with a more streamlined and organic-looking shell. If Ridley had to guess, he would say that this new armor was weaker than the Hunter's previous Power Suit but offered more in the way of agility and speed. Considering what Ridley new of the Hunter's combat ability and fighting style, these changes could potentially make the Hunter even deadlier than ever before. Especially considering Ridley's current, weakened condition.

"You've changed." The only thing Ridley could do was to try and act smug in order to make it seem like he wasn't at as much of a disadvantage as he really was.

"I could say the same about you." The Hunter replied. "I remember you being a lot bigger than that. And what's with the hat?"

"It's a long story." Ridley shrugged. "Much like the one behind your new suit, I would imagine."

"You know, when I got the call saying you were here, I was really hoping it was fake. I thought for sure I had finally seen the last of you after blowing up your X-infected corpse on the BSL Research Station."

"My what on the what?" Ridley had no idea what the Hunter was talking about. "The last time we fought was right before you blew up Zebes."

"I didn't blow up Zebes!" The Hunter snapped. "Zebes was destroyed by Mother Brain's self-destruct sequence!"

"Which wouldn't have gone off if you hadn't killed her." Ridley pointed out.

"I suppose the remains on the BSL Station could have been from your clone that I killed on the Bottle Ship." The Hunter remarked, ignoring Ridley's comment.

"What clone?" Ridley has even more confused now.

"It's a long story that I'd rather not talk about. The Federation collected various DNA samples off of my suit without my knowledge after Zebes and they used it in order to bring back the various creatures of Zebes. Unfortunately, you were among the things they cloned. I suppose it was kind of fun seeing what you looked like as a baby, though, 'Little Birdie'."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Ridley said blankly.

"Yeah, I suppose it wasn't really that important." The Hunter shrugged. "Wait, why am I even explaining any of this to you? I should just finish you off and be done with this."

The Hunter fired several Ice Beam blasts from her arm cannon. Ridley was able to avoid most of them but took a direct shot to his left wing, freezing it and making him unable to fly away.

"You think that will be enough to stop me." Ridley taunted.

"Of course not." The Hunter replied. "But you know, you were right when you said that I've changed. You were talking about my armor, but that isn't the only thing. You see, I don't work alone anymore. Now!"

The Hunter's gunship suddenly flew by overhead, releasing something directly over Ridley. Ridley jumped out of the way of the object before he could tell what it was but was sent flying back by a mighty shockwave that was released as whatever it was crashed into the ground. When Ridley stood back up he was surprised to see that the thing that had dropped was a dark-haired human boy in a green outfit. Before he had time to react to that, however, a charged Plasma Beam was fired in his direction, blowing a hole through his right wing. Ridley let out a howling roar of pain as someone else walked into view wearing heavy blue armor, similar in design to the armor that the Hunter used to wear, though slightly bulkier and more archaic looking. The Hunter and this new blue-armored warrior both pointed their arm cannons at Ridley as they walked up beside the boy in green, who bumped his fists together to create a protective barrier around them using the strange gloves he wore, which were connected to some kind of device mounted on his back. The gunship flew by again and hovered in the air directly above them, all its weapons systems aimed directly at Ridley.

"This time I'm making sure that there won't be even a single cell left of you to come back from." The Hunter declared.

"Well, blitznack." Ridley could see no possible way to get out of this situation. He was doomed.


	13. World 4-3 vs Samus

"Now!"

The Hunter, the person in blue armor and the gunship all fired upon Ridley in unison. The energy beams and missiles hurtled towards the space dragon with incredible speed, giving him almost no time to react. Ridley reflexively took a step back, inadvertently stepping over the edge of the plateau they were on. This proved to be to Ridley's benefit, as he suddenly fell off the side of the mountain just in time to avoid getting hit. Unfortunately, Ridley's wings were still damaged, one frozen and the other with a hole burnt through it, which meant that he wouldn't be able to fly to safety. He could climb along the mountainside, though, and made his way to a small cave alcove set into the cliff. He wouldn't be able to stay hidden for long but at least this would give him a little more time to think.

Several blocks hung in the air above Ridley's head, similar in design to the ones that he had seen Luigi hit back when they had first started their journey. Ridley remembered how Luigi had been able to get a flower from one of the yellow question blocks which allowed him to gain the power to throw fireballs for a while. Ridley felt that the chances of one of these blocks holding a similar item that he could use would be slim but he had to try. So, Ridley jumped up and punched one of the yellow blocks with his raised fist. A coin popped out of the top as the block faded to brown. Ridley grabbed the coin, hoping that it would do something but nothing happened. So, Ridley hit another block and was rewarded with several more useless gold coins. The third block proved to hold something a bit more useful, however: a large red mushroom covered in white spots.

Ridley picked up the mushroom. It didn't dissolve at his touch the way that the Ice Flower from before had, so he plopped the brightly colored fungus into his mouth and swallowed it whole. It gave him an instant sense of renewed energy. His frozen wing suddenly began to thaw off while the hole in the other one healed itself. In a few seconds, Ridley was fully recovered and ready to get out of there. It wasn't a moment too soon, either, as the Hunter's gunship suddenly flew down beside him, with the Hunter standing atop it, ready to open fire again. Without hesitation, Ridley leapt out of the alcove and vaulted off of the ship before he could be attacked again. Ridley spread his wings and glided on the wind to get as far away as he could. Knowing that he would make an easy target if he were to just go straight ahead, Ridley began to serpentine his way down to a large forest that he spotted ahead, just across the bay. If he could make his way there, then he would be able to hide among the trees. For once, being small would actually come to his advantage. If he could just make his way down there.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy, though. Ridley had to roll out of the way of a missile fired at him from behind, followed by another. The Hunter seemed even more persistent than usual, which was not working to Ridley's favor. After managing to avoid several more attacks, Ridley was struck down by another missile. The explosive force caused him to tumble out of the sky in an uncontrolled freefall. Fortunately for Ridley, he had managed to make it far enough to reach the forest. Ridley crashed into the treetops before he could be attacked again, falling out of sight. Once he was on the ground, Ridley dashed across the forest floor as quickly as he could. He needed to be as far away from where he had landed if he didn't want to be found. And of course, Ridley had no desire to be hunted down and executed. For the first time ever, he had something other than himself to live for. Which was something that he still couldn't understand.

Once Ridley had managed to make his way far enough that he was sure it would be nearly impossible for the Hunter to track him down, Ridley dove into a large bush. Using his natural camouflage abilities, Ridley slowly changed the color of his skin to a dark green color. He had no idea how long he would have to stay hidden like this, or how he would even know when it would be safe to come out. All he knew was that he would have to stay there, completely still and completely silent, or else he was finished.

Time seemed to melt away as Ridley waited there. He lowered his body temperature in order to make sure that he could not be found using thermal tracking and was even able to slow his heartbeat to a near stop just in case that the Hunter could track it. Unfortunately, there was a reason that the space pirates referred to the Hunter as such and it was not long before Ridley could hear someone approaching. The Hunter had been able to follow the trail that Ridley had inadvertently left behind as he had hurried through the forest. The Hunter's bright orange armor stood out among the dark greens and browns that filled the forest as the Hunter approached the small clearing directly ahead of Ridley. They were so close that Ridley feared that even a small breath would give away his location as the Hunter looked around for any sign of him.

Ridley thought for a moment that the Hunter was going to move on and that he was safe, only to immediately be proven wrong as he found the Hunter's arm cannon pointed directly at him. Ridley barely had time to jump out of the bush as it was suddenly frozen by a blast of the Hunter's Ice Beam. He leaped over the Hunter's head and landed on the ground behind the Hunter, confident that he would be able to get at least one hit in before he could be attacked again. Unfortunately, he had not taken into account the extra speed and agility that the Hunter's new armor provided compared to the old Power Suit as the Hunter suddenly spun around and decked him in the snout, knocking Ridley flat onto his back. The Hunter dug an armored boot into Ridley's chest to pin him down. Ridley was sure that the pale blue light from the Hunter's cannon would be the last thing he would ever see.

"This is the end, Ridley." The Hunter said. "At long last, this is finally the end."

Yoshi suddenly and unexpectedly ran out into the clearing, Luigi riding on his back. The small green dinosaur jumped into the air and bounced off of the Hunter's helmet, sending the Hunter stumbling back. Luigi hopped off of Yoshi's back and the two stood defensively between Ridley and the Hunter.

"Leave-a my brother alone!" Luigi demanded.

The Hunter fumbled around for a moment. "I think that y'all… er… that you just hit me harder than I thought. Did you just say something about your brother?"

"Of course I-a did!" Luigi snapped. "I-a told you to-a leave my brother alone!"

"Look, bub. I don't know what you're talking about. Now get out of my way!"

"No!" Yoshi yelled. "We're not letting you hurt Mario!"

"Mario?" The Hunter was getting more and more confused. "Who's Mario?"

"That would be me." Ridley replied as he got back onto his feet. "Sort of. It's a long story."

"What? I don't… Huh?" The Hunter was having trouble processing what was being said. "What's even going on right now?"

"I'd-a like to know-a that myself." Luigi said. "Why are-a you attacking Mario?"

"Look, I don't know who this 'Mario' person is!" The Hunter sighed. "That _thing_ that you're trying to defend is named Ridley and he's a dangerous pirate!"

"Oh, I-a think I see where the confusion here-a is." Luigi acted like he suddenly realized something. "We're-a not pirates, my-a brother and I-a just got a ride from-a some pirates earlier because we-a got caught in a storm."

"Look, I don't know what lies this monster has been feedin' ya, but that clearly ain't your brother!" The Hunter's natural accent was starting to slip through due to frustration.

Luigi clenched his fists tightly and stared at the ground in silence.

"And I don't know what _you're_ talking about!" Yoshi yelled back at the Hunter. "Everyone here knows who Mario is! He's got to be the greatest hero _ever_!"

"Except-a he isn't-a really Mario, are-a you?" Luigi asked sorrowfully as he turned to Ridley.

"No, no I'm not." Part of Ridley actually felt relieved to finally tell Luigi this, though he didn't know why.

"What?" Yoshi was alarmed by this sudden turn of events.

"I-a knew it." Luigi looked back up again, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I-a realized a while ago that-a you weren't him, but-a… I-a didn't want to accept-a it. If you-a aren't Mario, then that-a means that-a he's…"

"Dead." Ridley finished Luigi's sentence.

"What?" Yoshi repeated.

"I was hired to kill him by the one you call Bowser." Ridley explained. "After finishing him off and collecting my payment I decided it would be funny to put on his hat and taunt everyone at the castle. But then I somehow shrank down to human size before arriving at the castle and everyone acted like I really was this Mario person. I was confused at first so I tried to play along until I could figure out what was going on but then the next day that stupid space witch confronted me. She was about to kill me when the Princess was kidnapped again and she decided to force me into pretending to be the Mario until she could find a way to somehow bring the real one back. She made it painfully clear that if I were to kill anyone else or let anyone find out that I was a fake, then she'd kill me."

"I-I can't believe it." Yoshi slumped onto the ground.

"Well, that's probably the craziest story I've ever heard, which is saying somethin' considering all I've been through before." The Hunter prepared to fire at Ridley again. "But I guess that's comin' to a close, now."

"No!" Luigi stepped in front of the Hunter's arm cannon as it was about to go off.

"What?" The Hunter quickly stopped charging the attack. "Why would you defend him after he just admitted to killin' your brother?"

"I-a don't know." Luigi admitted. "I-a should hate him for what-a he's done, but I-a just can't. After traveling with-a him these-a past couple days I-a just… I-a don't know. I've-a always been nothing more than-a Mario's sidekick, even-a since we were-a kids, but now… now I-a feel like I'm-a treated like an equal. Even with-a the bad, I can-a still feel that there's-a good in him."

"Good?" The Hunter seemed almost outraged by the very notion. "You have no idea what he's done! All of the lives he's taken, all of the trouble he's caused for so many planets. When I was a child, he and his band of pirates came to the minin' colony where I lived to take _everything_ that we had. My father gave his life tryin' to stop them and he even _ate_ my mother right in front of me."

"I did what?" It was now Ridley's turn to not believe what he was hearing. He had killed the Hunter's parents? When had he done that? Did this mean that he was responsible for creating the Hunter?

"Of course you wouldn't remember it!" The Hunter started to laugh hysterically. "For me, it was the day you destroyed my life and killed everyone I ever knew, but for you, it was just an average day! Because that's just the kind of depraved monster you are! I'm sure you probably don't even remember the K-2L colony!"

"K-2L?" Ridley did remember that particularly disastrous mission all too well. "You mean the afloraltite mining facility? But that's impossible. There were no survivors other than… no, you can't be…"

"I am." The Hunter confirmed Ridley's fears. "That little girl who was so naive that she thought the scary monster that came to her small settlement could be her friend, only for you to turn around and try to kill her. She was taken in by a group of Chozo that passed by shortly after you left and was raised to be their final gift to the universe, a living weapon to take on threats like you. She grew up to be me. I'd take my helmet off now for a dramatic reveal, but you wouldn't recognize my face. I don't even recognize the face that looks back at me in the mirror anymore. Not since the X."

"I-I can't believe it." Ridley stared blankly at the Hunter, remembering the face of that terrified little girl so long ago. It was a face that had been burned into the back of his mind ever since that day. "I'm so… sorry?"

Ridley couldn't believe what he had just said.

"Sorry that you let me live?" The Hunter asked.

"You said that wouldn't remember what happened on K-2L, but you couldn't be further from the truth." Ridley tried to find a way to put his feelings into words, but it was hard when he had never felt anything like what he did now and had never been one to discuss any feelings other than hunger and spite before. "I've never been able to forget what happened. The memories have always haunted me on some level, especially the way you looked at me after I devoured your mother. Your eyes were filled with a determination and rage I had never seen before then, or since. I always thought it was because of how horribly things turned out for me when the mines exploded and killed all of my crew. In fact, I'm sure that was the main reason, possibly even the only reason at the time. But things have changed a lot for me recently. I'm starting to see things differently. I've completely forgotten what I was trying to say. Anyway, if it's any consolation at all, I was never going to kill you that day. Although that probably isn't a good thing since my plan was to kidnap you and force you into serving under me before the explosion ruined that plan. I am a monster, aren't I? Samus, I believe your name was? I know you could never forgive me for what I've done. I don't even _deserve_ your forgiveness or for you to spare me. I just ask that you not hurt anyone else here. As impossible as this sounds, I think I've actually started to like the people here."

Ridley took off Mario's hat and wrung it in his claws. Yoshi and Luigi suddenly took a step back from him, clearly startled as they finally saw Ridley true appearance for the first time. Samus lowered her arm cannon, stunned at all she had heard. After taking a moment to process everything, she raised it again.

"Fine, I wasn't planning on hurting anyone other than you, anyway."

Before she could fire at Ridley, Samus was suddenly struck in the back with a large melon. The fruit splattered across her armor, sending juice everywhere and causing Samus to stumble.

"What was that?" Samus yelled as she turned around to see Roshi standing at the edge of the clearing, having just thrown the melon at her. "Who're you?"

"Oh, um… I'm Roshi." The yellow dinosaur waved, clearly embarrassed. "And I, uh… didn't really catch all of what just happened but… uh, Ridley, was it? Ridley was nice to me when we met earlier today, and no one's ever nice to me. I would appreciate it if you didn't kill him, please?"

Samus lowered her arm cannon again and sighed, relaxing her posture somewhat. "Fine. I don't know what exactly's happened here, but this clearly isn't the same Ridley that I've fought so many times before. Honestly, I feel like making him finish whatever's going on here would be a worse punishment than just killing him, anyway."

Kamek observed what was going on from atop his broom, flying up above the Forest of Illusion. The plan was to hire Samus to take out Ridley before he could make his way to Bowser's Castle, hopefully eliminating Luigi and any other potential threats in the process. Things were not turning out as expected, however, and at the rate things were going now this entire plan was about to backfire _hard_. If Kamek didn't find a way to stop this quickly, he would be in serious trouble when he reported back to Bowser. The Koopa King had used Kamek as a backscratcher when he first told him that Ridley had seemingly teamed up with Luigi after Bowser had kidnapped Peach again. And that was still preferable to what he had done to the Goomba's that had the misfortune of reporting Peach's escape the night before that.

The bespectacled magikoopa looked around frantically. His gaze settled on the entrance to the Valley of Bowser and a crooked smile formed across his beak-like mouth as an idea formed in his head.


	14. World 4-4 The Valley of Bowser

Samus' gunship landed in a small clearing just outside of the Forest of Illusion, where the Hunter waited alongside Ridley and the others. A hatch opened up on the underside of the ship and the two who had assisted Samus earlier lowered down to the ground via some form of tractor beam.

"What's going on?" The boy in green asked, visibly confused by what he saw.

"There's been a change of plans." Samus responded. "We're going to be dropping this bounty, at least for the time being."

"Never expected to hear you say that." Said the one wearing a blue Chozodian Power Suit. "What happened?"

"I'm not quite sure myself." Samus shrugged and shook her head. "But it would appear that I'm not the only one who's changed."

"I don't get it." The kid scratched his head in confusion.

"You don't need to." Samus said as she walked up beside him. "Now let's head home. I asked a friend to look after my apartment while I was gone but I don't really trust Douglas to feed my pets."

"Didn't you need the money from this bounty to pay off your rent?" The ship's onboard A.I. asked.

"Ah, I'll figure something out."

"Well, you could always take me up on my offer." The blue-clad warrior suggested.

"For the last time, Armstrong, we ain't, er, we're not moving in together."

"Worth a shot." Armstrong shrugged.

"Anyway," Samus tried to bring the conversation back on topic. "I guess its time to go. I still don't really feel comfortable letting you live but I guess I'll let you save the princess or whatever it was you were doing. As for the rest of you, well, it was nice meeting you, I guess."

"Hey, before you-a leave, could-a we ask you for a favor?" Luigi suddenly asked.

"What?"

"Well, we need to get to Dark Land to rescue the Princess from Bowser but we don't have a boat to get there. Could you give us a ride there on that spaceship of yours?"

Samus considered this request. "I don't see why not. It'll be a bit of a tight fit though, ADAM's not really meant to hold that many-"

The ground suddenly began to tremble violently beneath their feet. The ocean waves beating against the nearby shoreline rose higher and higher, almost reaching as far as the point where everyone was standing.

"Everyone, on the ship!" Samus shouted and jumped into the ship without waiting for ADAM to beam her up. She dashed to the front of the ship and jumped into the pilot's seat, knocking away a small furry brown creature that had been sitting there.

"Oi, watch it!" The alien creature yelled as the others clambered into the ship.

"Sorry, Diesel." Samus grabbed the ship's controls and took off as soon as everyone was aboard. "ADAM, status report!"

"There appears to be a major seismic disturbance in the area, originating from a large underground cavern just a few miles west of our current location." ADAM explained.

"The Valley of Bowser?" Luigi wondered aloud.

"Records indicate that is what the locals call it, yes."

"How bad is it?" Samus asked the computer.

"My sensors indicate a magnitude of somewhere in the range of 8.5 to 9.5, though there is also some heavy electromagnetic interference that may be messing with my readings. Assuming that my readings are accurate, I predict an 78% chance that the disturbance may grow large enough to potentially destroy this entire continent if it does not subside soon."

"How do we stop it?" Yoshi began to panic.

"A better question is what's causing it." Samus muttered. "This can't be natural."

"I believe that may become obvious if you turn us around to face it."

Samus followed ADAM's suggestion and turned the ship around so that they could see the entrance to the Valley of Bowser through the reinforced grobnite windshield. What they saw was the massive stone structure formed in the image of King Bowser rising up out of the water, almost as if it were alive.

"What the frak?" Samus muttered under her breath while Diesel shouted the same question at the top of his minuscule lungs.

"Is that who I think it is?" Luigi asked as he clambered up to the front of the ship for a closer view, which was not an easy task as there was barely any room to move. Ridley could feel at least three people standing on his tail, to say nothing of his wings.

"ADAM, zoom in on that blue thing." Samus ordered, gesturing to the same small blue speck atop the valley entrance's head that Luigi was pointing to.

A large window popped up on the digital overlay embedded into the windshield, displaying a closeup view of a yellow turtle-like creature dressed in blue robes and a pointed hat dancing on top of the titanic Bowser effigy. The red jewel at the end of the golden scepter it carried was glowing brightly.

"Kamek?" Yoshi gasped in surprise from the back of the overly crowded ship.

"He appears to-a be casting some-a kind of spell." Luigi pointed out. "That must-a be what's-a causing this."

"Casting a spell?" Armstrong repeated. "What, you mean like magic?"

"Why not?" Samus asked. "I once fought Phazon-enhanced Chozo _ghosts_ back on Tallon IV. As far as I'm concerned, anything's possible."

"I always thought you made that up." Armstrong sounded dumbfounded.

"I never make stuff up when I talk about my missions." Samus replied. "They already get weird enough without adding on to them."

"Magic is real?" The boy in green's eyes seemed to light up with excitement. "That's so cool."

"Calm down, Joey." Samus let out a small sigh. "ADAM, target that weird wizard lizard thing and fire at it with ship missiles! Blow that alien to smithereens!"

"Roger that."

A targeting reticule appeared on-screen over Kamek before a barrage of high-powered explosives were sent careening down on the exact spot where the magikoopa was casting his spell. When the smoke cleared, there were no signs that Kamek had ever been there.

"That's one problem taken care of." Samus relaxed her shoulders a bit.

"Not exactly." ADAM responded. "My sensors indicate that the lifeform known as 'Kamek' is now flying right beside us."

As if confirming the A.I.'s statement, the blue-clad magikoopa flew around to the front of the ship on his broom.

"Hello, traitors." Kamek screeched as he adjusted his thick-brimmed, opaque glasses. "Prepare to see what happens to those who turn against the great King Bowser!"

With a wave of his wand, Kamek vanished out of thin air, leaving the mismatched group of ragtag heroes and bounty hunters alone on the ship facing the now-immobile rock structure.

"Well, that was different." Armstong commented. "Now what?"

"I guess… we won?" Joey said questioningly.

Just then, blue light poured out from the gaps between the massive boulders that comprised the Valley of Bowser's form and its eyes lit up with deep azure flames. The stone colossus let out an impressively powerful roar, particularly since it lacked any kind of vocal cords, and began to walk slowly towards them. With each lumbering step it took, massive waves were sent crashing in every direction. The normally calm seas of Dinosaur Land suddenly became even the most experienced sailor's worst nightmare.

"This is bad. This is bad. This is very, _very_ bad." Yoshi began to say over and over again as he failed not to have a panic attack.

"That's it, I'm out of here!" Diesel shouted as he tried to wrestle the ship' controls away from Samus using the long, tentacle-like limbs that sprouted out the sides of his small, rodent-like body.

"No! Bad Diesel! My ship!" Samus kicked the cyborg Craftsmen away to get him to let go, sending him crashing into a wall and nearly hitting Armstrong in the process.

"I object to being called 'your ship'." ADAM stated. "I'm my own ship."

"No, you're not." Samus argued. "You were given to me by the federation, therefore you're my ship."

"The same Federation that currently has a bounty listed on your head? One of the largest bounties in history, in fact?" ADAM asked sarcastically. "I was _lent_ to you for a single mission, after which you technically _stole_ me and made all kinds of unauthorized modifications. Not to mention this paint job."

"Hey, ya'll agreed tah come with me!" Samus pointed out angrily, her accent slipping once again. "And what's wrong with ye'r current paint job? Orange is great!"

"I preferred purple. And it's less the color so much as the quality of the paint job that I have an issue with."

"Well excuse me for not being able to do a better job." Diesel said sarcastically. "It's not like I can get good quality paint when I spend most of my time having to scrounge around scrapyards for parts! I may be the universe's greatest mechanic but there's only so much I can do with what I'm given!"

"Hey, can we get back to focusing on the giant dragon golem currently marching towards us!" Ridley snapped angrily, causing everyone to quickly shut up and calm down. "That thing makes _Kraid_ look small and I'm pretty sure that it's about to attack us with something."

"I do sense a build-up of atomic radiation building up inside of it." ADAM commented.

"Wait, what?" Samus was just barely able to swerve the gunship out of the way as the Valley of Bowser fired a massive blast of energy from its mouth directly at them.

"How does it even know where we are?" Armstrong questioned. "It's made of rocks, isn't it? It shouldn't have eyes or anything."

"Why is this not the first time that I've been attacked by a pile of rocks?" Samus yelled as she steered the ship out of the way of another atomic energy ray.

"Oh, right, Thardus." Ridley scratched his chin. "It's a shame we never got that thing under control. Then again, it turned out we couldn't get _anything_ powered by Phazon under control and it turned out our attempts to do so were worse than useless."

"Enough reminiscing!" It was Armstrong's turn to try and get everyone back on task. "Let's just focus on figuring out a way to beat this thing."

"Right, right." Samus turned her attention back to their titanic golem that was continuing to fire massive blasts of radioactive blue fire at them. "Any of y'all have any ideas on how to stop this thing? That ship missile we fired earlier didn't land so much as a dent on that thing even though it was probably the strongest thing in mah arsenal."

"Have-a we tried-a jumping on it?" Luigi asked. "That-a normally seems to-a work in-a these kind of-a situations."

"Don't see how that's supposed to do anything." Samus shook her head in confusion.

"This world is weird." Ridley offered unhelpfully. "Personally, I'd say to attack whatever part of it happens to be glowing. I guess that would be the eyes right now."

"Preliminary scans do not show any structural weaknesses." ADAM revealed. "And even if they did, attempting to destroy this thing could potentially set off a nuclear explosion large enough to kill everything on the surrounding continent. The resulting fallout could potentially devastate the entire planet's environment and cause a nuclear winter that would result in the extinction of all life on the planet."

"Well, that ain't good." Samus swerved the ship around another blast of atomic energy. "And that's getting' really annoying!"

"Even my island?" Yoshi asked in response to ADAM's statement.

"Yes." The computer answered.

"We can't let that happen!" Yoshi cried out to no one in particular.

"And we're not gonna." Samus tried to calm down the big green reptile before he raised a fuss. There was already too little room in the ship without a panicking dinosaur. "We just need to find a way to take this thing out without settin' it off."

"Ooh, I have an idea!" Joey spoke up, raising his hand and waving it about wildly, smacking Diesel in the face. "I once saw this old movie where the characters had to stop a nuclear missile from blowing up their town so they ended up having to redirect it into a nearby lake so that it couldn't go off. Could we try the same thing with this?"

"The chances of something like that working are slim." ADAM ran the numbers. "But it seems to be our best bet at the moment."

"Then I guess that settles it." Samus announced. "Commence Operation: Flood the Valley!"

ADAM's cockpit was filled with silence for a moment as they dodged another blast.

"So, what exactly are we doing, then?" Ridley finally asked.

"I dunno." Samus shrugged. "But ya'll can't deny that order sounded cool."

"True." Armstrong nodded. "So, I guess we just need to try to knock it over so that it ends up fully submerged in the ocean and see if that stops it without setting it off?"

"Sure." Samus gave a thumbs down as a way of showing her approval of this plan. It was a sign that was far from reassuring for those who were not familiar with this particular quirk of hers, which was roughly half the individuals on the ship. "Now how do we do that?"


	15. World 4-5 With Friends Like These

Samus maneuvered the gunship around the Valley of Bowser and locked into place behind the gargantuan rock sculptures head. The nuclear golem tried to turn around to face them again, but its considerable bulk made it incredibly slow. This made it easy for Samus to simply keep the ship out of danger. The only problem was that they were now at a stalemate. The Valley of Bowser couldn't hit them because it was too slow but they still didn't know how to attack it without setting off an apocalyptic explosion that could potentially wipe out all life on the planet. Obviously, this was not an ideal situation.

"Well, at least it's not firing lasers at us anymore." Joey commented in partial relief.

"Those weren't lasers." Samus corrected him. "They were thermonuclear energy blasts."

"Lasers is easier to say." The boy muttered under his breath.

"This does give us more time to think, though." Ridley eyed the view screen closely as if staring at it would be enough to figure out how to stop it. "Anyone have any ideas?"

"Maybe we could try tripping it?" Roshi suggested, looking down at his larger-than-average belly with a twinge of sadness. "I know that always works on me."

"That could work." Samus considered the option for a moment. "We could use the ship's grapple beam as a tripwire to knock it over."

"There is a flaw in that plan." ADAM interjected. "The resulting tidal wave caused by something that big crashing into the water like that could potentially flood the surrounding continent."

"Then how else are we supposed to submerge this thing?" Samus yelled in frustration, which was not a smart thing to do in a confined space crammed with people.

"I am afraid that I don't know the answer to that question." ADAM admitted. "I can not calculate any scenario in which we are able to successfully defeat this thing without massive ecological damage as a result."

Samus punched the ship's windshield out of frustration. Fortunately, it wasn't with enough force to damage it.

"That's certainly not the reaction that I would have expected from you." Ridley snickered. "How many planets have you blown up at this point?"

"Can it, lizard!" Samus tried to point her arm cannon at the space dragon, though there wasn't enough room in the cramped cockpit for her to do so and she just ended up smacking Diesel in the face. The small, furry mechanic swore loudly, prompting Armstrong to cover Joey's ears. "Now's _not_ the time!"

"Right, sorry." Ridley apologized, which was not something he was used to doing or that he particularly liked. "Still new at this whole, 'being the good guy' thing. It's going to take some getting used to."

"I-a have an idea!" Luigi spoke up. "Can-a we use the-a thing that-a pulled us in her to-a lift that-a thing up out of-a the water and fly it into-a space?"

"Nice thought." Samus replied. "But the tractor beam isn't nearly strong enough to lift that thing up."

"If only we knew what was actually powering that thing." Armstrong mused. "It would be much easier if we could just turn it off."

Before anyone could react to that comment, the giant rocks that made up the Valley of Bowser began to shift and move around each other. Samus barely had time to send the ship hurtling out of the way before the titanic stone recreation of the Koopa King was suddenly facing them and fired off another beam of radioactive blue flames.

"Well, apparently it can do that now." Samus said, mildly stunned by the unexpected turn of events. "So much for hiding in its blind spot."

"Am I crazy or did I just see a castle inside that thing's head?" Ridley asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Why not both?" Yoshi replied sarcastically.

"I-a didn't see it, but-a there was a castle in-a the Valley of Bowser when-a Mario and I were-a here last time." Luigi stated. "I-a don't know-a how that works now that-a the Valley is-a like this-a now."

Ridley pondered silently for a moment as they dodged another radioactive blast before speaking up again. "I'm going in there."

"You're what?" Just about everyone asked at more-or-less the same time.

"I'm going in there." The ex-space pirate repeated. "There might be something inside that we can use to stop it safely."

"But you'll die!" Joey pointed out.

"Oh, please. Do you really think a lit something like nuclear radiation is going to bother _me_? I'm mother-eating Ridley!"

"I don't think that's how that saying goes." Armstrong muttered.

"Accurate, though. He ate my mother, after all." Samus said semi-sarcastically as she grabbed Diesel out of the air and pulled him to the ship's controls. "Take over for me, I'm going too."

"Wait, what?" Diesel quickly grabbed hold of the controls with the long, slender tentacle-like appendages emerging from his sides to steer the ship out of the way of a radioactive blast.

"You can't be serious!" Armstrong grabbed her arm to keep her from going. "It's too dangerous."

"What, do ya think I'm goin' ta let my archnemesis upstage me?" Samus laughed. "Besides, my suit should protect me."

"Just barely." ADAM said. "Your Fusion Suit won't be able to shield you from that much radiation for more than about an hour."

"Then we just won't take that long." Samus shrugged as she shook loose from Armstrong's grip. "And I'm surprised that you aren't just sending me in there without any proper protection. That's what the original you would have done."

"That was one time!" ADAM snapped.

Samus managed to work her way to the back of the overly crowded cockpit where Ridley was waiting and pressed a button to open the entrance. Then she turned around to face everyone, gave an enthusiastic thumbs-down and fell backward out of the ship.

"Did… did Samus just forget to wait until we were actually above the enemy?" Armstrong questioned.

Ridley sighed and facepalmed before jumping out of the ship after her. He dove down beside the bounty hunter and reached out to grab her, but he was too slow as Samus suddenly went into a summersault and was surrounded by an aura of crackling energy.

"Oh, right." Ridley said as he watched the sizzling ball of orange energy bounced through air towards the Valley of Bowser. "Space Jump… and Screw Attack. You'd think that I'd have the Hunter's normal powerset memorized by now."

Ridley glided along behind Samus, making sure to keep his distance. He had been hit by her Screw Attack enough to know to stay clear of her when she was using it. He had no idea how it actually worked but he did now that it was enough to hurt him even in his regular form. He didn't even want to know how much it could hurt him in his current state.

Samus landed on one of the rocks that made of the Valley of Bowser's nose and looked up as Ridley flew past. He perched atop the Valley's head and climbed down to where the Hunter was waiting.

"Well, that was fun. Now let's… um…" Samus stared up at Ridley.

"What?" The space dragon asked defensively.

"How does that thing stay on." She pointed up to his head, prompting Ridley to glance up at Mario's cap, which was somehow able to stay on his head without being blown off by the wind.

"I… don't know."

"Whatever, let's just get going."

With that, Samus jumped into the blue flames emerging from the Valley of Bowser's eye and Ridley crawled in after her. It was hard to see anything through the magically radioactive blue fire that filled the massive stone structure, but they could both just barely make out a large castle in the distance. Unfortunately, it was still quite a ways away from them with no pathways leading to it. Ridley unfurled his wings and was immediately sent hurtling upwards, crashing into the ceiling at terminal velocity before falling back down decide Samus in a contorted heap.

"I can't believe I'm asking _you_ this, but are y'all OK?" Samus prodded Ridley in the rib with one of her metal boots.

"Never better." Ridley growled as he straightened himself out and stood up again, most of his joints noisily cracking into place as he did so. "You've beaten me worse than that countless times."

"That I have." Samus nodded.

"I feel like my flesh is about ready to melt off my bones, though, so I think we should hurry up."

"I know what ya mean. Even with mah suit's heat shielding I still feel like I'm inside an oven." Samus agreed. "But now I'm not sure how we're supposed to get over there. If I were to use mah Screw Attack or Grapple Beam in here, it'd probably set the whole thing off. Not that I even have my Grapple Beam anymore, anyway."

"Considering we came here specifically to prevent that from happening, it's definitely a good idea that we don't do that." Ridley scratched his chin for a moment. "I have an idea. I hate it, but it's an idea. I'm going to have to grab you, so try not to instinctively try to kill me or anything."

"What are you…"

Ridley wrapped his long, spindly arms around Samus' waist in a surprisingly strong grip and opened up his wings again. The dragon and bounty hunter were both sent flying up but with the extra weight, their ascent wasn't quite as fast as it had been when Ridley was on his own. This gave Ridley the time he needed to control their trajectory just enough so that when Ridley crashed into the cave ceiling again, they were just above the castle. Unfortunately, Ridley wasn't able to control his fall any better than before and the two crashed right through the castle's roof.

"Never. Do. That. AGAIN!" Samus yelled furiously at her former archnemesis as she managed to pull herself out of his grip and looked around. "Well, that's odd."

Ridley managed to slowly clamber up onto all fours and quickly noticed the same thing that Samus had. They were no longer engulfed in magic blue flames. He looked up at the hole where they had just made through the castle's roof, as well as a few windows scattered around the large room they were now in. The fires still burned brightly just outside but seemed to stop at every available entrance into the castle.

"Wait… but it's… the fire… but it should… how?" Samus babbled incoherently.

"I've learned that its best not to question the laws of physics on this planet. They don't seem to apply." Ridley said sagely as he placed an assuring hand on Samus' armored shoulder, prompting the space hunter to slam him face-first into the hard-stone floor. "Ow."

"Okay, my suit's detecting a life signature somewhere nearby." Samus suddenly acted as if everything was normal again. "I say we check it out."

"Yes, I can smell it." Ridley sniffed the air. "It smells familiar, but I can't quite place it. I think it might be… wait, why do you smell like a Metroid?"

Samus tensed up noticeably. "Let's just get going. These readings indicate that it's the same alien that we saw earlier."

"Yes, that's what I was just about to say." Ridley wanted an answer, but his sense of self-preservation told him that he shouldn't press her further right now. He didn't want to get on her bad side, after all. Well, _further_ on her bad side, anyway. He was always on her bad side. "I think its name was Kazzak, or Kalek, or something like that. Works for Bowser."

"What's the deal with this Bowser guy, anyway?" Samus asked as they started walking towards where they both detected the Magikoopa to be.

"I don't know?" Ridley shrugged. "My crew and I fled to this star system to get away from a Federation warship that had been tracking us down when we picked up a transmission from this planet. When we answered, we found that it was from some sort of local king or warlord or something, asking for help kidnapping the princess of a rival kingdom. Normally I don't do abductions, but it sounded like a bit of fun and I had nothing better to do while we were lying low, so I took the job. He had me stationed in a small castle with orders to kill a human guy in a red cap, the one I'm wearing right now. I carried out the job while I had my crew take the princess from Bowser's castle and send her back to her own people. For a sizable reward, of course. It sounds like he seems to try abducting the princess a lot but was always defeated by 'the Mario', which is why he hired me to kill the guy. In fact, he took the princess just a day after my crew 'rescued' her, which is why the green one and I are going to fight him."

"I was asking if ya knew anything about him, not for your whole life story." Samus pointed out. "Although that is interesting."

"That wasn't my life story. My life story is _far_ more interesting than that." Ridley muttered. "But what is it that you found interesting?"

"Because your side of the story if very different than what I was told. When Bowser called me to hire me for this job, he claimed to be the ruler of this planet and that you were attacking his people for no reason. I'm guessing he just made that story up to get me to kill you before you could kill him."

"Truly a monster of my own heart." There was no sarcasm in Ridley's voice as he said that. "But that does make me wonder how he even knew that it was me that was going after him when just about everyone else that I've run into since then has thought that I was the Mario."

Samus blasted a door open with her Ice Beam, freezing it over, then shattered it with an Ice Missile which froze the surrounding section of wall around the now empty doorway.

"You seem to be using a lot of ice-based weaponry these days." Ridley observed.

"Unfortunately, it's all I've got right now." Samus shook her head, which looked odd when she was in her armor. "I lost most of my suit's weapons and powerups when it was stripped down and turned into this Fusion Suit and only managed to get a handful of abilities during my final mission working for the Federation. I _want_ to be able to fill out my arsenal again, but Zebes and SR388 are both gone, I can't get anywhere near Talon IV or Elysia without being caught by the Federation and arrested for treason, and I haven't been able to find any other Chozo settlements where I can find upgrades for my suit. I can't even go to Aether and see if the Luminoth can help me out."

"Interesting." Ridley scratched his chin. "I have a lot of questions about what you've done since we last fought, but I suppose those will have to wait. We've already spent too much time just standing here and talking."

"I agree." Samus finally stepped through the icy archway leading into the next room, with Ridley keeping close behind her.

Kamek was floating in the air at the far end of the room. He didn't notice the two intruders' approach as his attention was focused solely on a large crystal ball in front of him which showed the battle outside. He appeared to be using it to control the Valley of Bowser.

"Now let's see you dodge _this_ one!" Kamek yelled angrily and raised his glowing wand for a moment. "Oh, the dodged that one, too. Well, how about this! Oh."

"Yeah, unless you change up your tactics, there's no way you're going to be able to get them." Samus said mockingly as she aimed her arm cannon at the Magikoopa. "You're just too slow."

"Gaah!" Kamek screamed at fell off his broom, landing on the red carpeted floor with a loud thump. "H-how… when did you get in here?"

"I don't know, maybe a few minutes ago." Ridley shrugged. "Or do you mean in this room, specifically. Because we just got here. Did you really not notice the Hunter here blow up the door. It wasn't exactly quiet."

"You know what, it doesn't matter." Kamek said dramatically as he floated up off the ground and landed gently on his feet. "This just means that I can have the privilege of taking both of you out myself. Take this!"

Kamek swung his wand, releasing a blast of magical energy flying towards Samus. The ball of sparkling energy glowed red, blue and yellow as it made its way across the room. Samus sidestepped out of the way, causing the magic to keep going until it hit the wall and turned one of the bricks into a Koopa.

"As I said, you're too slow." Samus reiterated. "I feel like a turtle could have dodged that."

"Why you…" Kamek seemed to seethe with anger, to the point where a dark red aura seemed to radiate out from his body. "That's it! I'll show you my ultimate attack!"

Kamek rose off the ground as he began to dance around wildly, shouting some sort of magical incantation in a language that neither Samus nor Ridley could identify. Samus aimed her arm cannon at the dancing Magikoopa, prepared to fire an Ice Missile at him. She didn't get the chance to, however, as Ridley acted first. The purple space dragon picked up the green-shelled Koopa that Kamek's spell had created, which retreated into its shell upon seeing him approach it. He then chucked the green shell at Kamek like a football, putting as much strength into the throw as he could. The makeshift projectile hurtled through the air like a rocket before bouncing off of Kamek's skull at what Samus estimated to be well over a hundred miles per hour. The blue-robed magician dropped to the floor like a ragdoll, with the Koopa landing on its back next to him.

"Well, that's… one way to do it." Samus lowered her canon as it was clear that their opponent was out cold and would not be waking up anytime soon.

"Okay, now let's get out of here before…"

Ridley didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before the castle began shaking violently around them. The floor began cracking apart as chunks of stone fell from the walls and ceiling.

"Why does this always happen!" Samus shouted in frustration. "Every! Single! Time!"

"Look's like we're going to have to find a way to get out of here before the whole thing explodes." Riley sighed. "Hopefully it doesn't take the whole planet with it."

The hunter and ex-pirate ran back out the way they had come. As they ran through the hallway back to the room that they had crashed into, Samus began to glow as her speed suddenly more than doubled. It became nearly impossible for Ridley to keep up with her, even running on all fours. She suddenly stopped and crouched down just below the hole in the ceiling that they had come in from, continuing to glow as Ridley caught up to her.

"Frak." Samus muttered under her breath. "I was going to shinespark my way out of here, but the flames outside haven't fully died off yet."

Samus' glowing armor steadily dimmed and returned to normal as Ridley looked around outside. The blue fire did appear to be subsiding, but they were still there for now, meaning that they still had to be careful about setting off an explosion. He could also see that the rocks making up the outer shell of the Valley of Bowser were breaking apart just like the castle, which at least gave them more options for where to find a way out. In fact, they could probably just stay there until the radioactive fire was completely gone if it weren't for the fact that they would likely end up crushed to death under an almost literal mountain of stone first.

"How're we supposed to get out of here?" Samus wondered aloud.

"You're the expert when it comes to these situations." Ridley pointed out. "Although, I think I may have an idea."

"Spill it."

"First, I'm going to need to do that thing where you somehow contort yourself into a sphere. I'm still not sure how you do that."

"Well, that's easy. You see, the Morph Ball works by-"

"I didn't ask for an explanation, I just need you to do it if you want out of here safely."

Samus shot Ridley a deathly glare, not that it was visible through the green-tinted visor of her helmet, before doing something that she never thought she would do by following Ridley's orders. Once she had activated her suit's Morph Ball functionality, Ridley picked her up and tucked her under his elbow before spreading his wings and kicking up off the ground. He was able to fly up to the roof without any issues and climbed out into the burning blue fire outside. The magical flames weren't burning nearly as hot as they had been before, which signified to Ridley that he wouldn't have as much of an issue with the updraft, which was nice. He spread out his wings again and was sent flying straight up again, though at a much slower speed than earlier. It didn't take long before he was able to maneuver his way to an opening leading outside and he was able to glide out.

Ridley took a deep breath of fresh air before flying up and circling the collapsing Valley of Bowser like a vulture above a dying animal. He spotted the orange gunship flying around nearby and glided down to it. He perched atop the ship before climbing around to its undercarriage and in through the entrance hatch that opened for him as he approached it. Once Ridley was safely inside, he finally dropped Samus onto the floor.

"Well, that was certainly different." Samus said, slightly relieved, as she stood back up again. "ADAM, status report!"

"Radiation levels are steadily dropping." The ship's A.I. confirmed. "At the current rate, it will reach safe levels in 45 seconds. 44, 43…"

"We don't need the countdown." Samus said as she climbed around the ship's other occupants to get back to the pilot's seat. "Is there any chance that it could still go critical?"

"Yes." ADAM replied. "Though the odds are only about 1.98% and dropping."

"So that's a no, then." Samus pulled Diesel out her chair and sat down, to the small engineer's annoyance.

"I was actually getting kind of worried there." Armstrong sighed. "For a moment I wasn't sure that you'd be able to do it."

"Oh, come on, you know me." Samus said playfully. "I always manage to save the day."

"Well, that really depends on your point of view." Ridley muttered.

"What are we going to do now?" Joey asked Samus.

"Well, I don't know about y'all, but I _really_ don't like it when people try to kill me."

"She really doesn't." Ridley confirmed.

"So, I think I'm going to go pay this Bowser fellah a visit and give him a piece of my mind." Samus continued. "Who's with me?"

"Yeah!" Joey cheered excitedly. "Let's show that nerf-herding jerk what's coming to him!"

"Watch your language." Armstrong said, concerned. "Though of course, I agree with your sentiment. Of course I'm in."

"Sure, whatever." Diesel shrugged.

"We-a still need to-a save the Princess." Luigi pointed out. "So, if you could-a give us a ride, that would-a be great."

"Would sure beat walking." Ridley added.

"Why not." Samus nodded.

"I want to help out, too." Roshi spoke up. "I may not be all that useful, but I still want to do what I can."

"That's-a the spirit!" Luigi said encouragingly.

"So, it looks like we're all in agreement, then." Samus turned back to the controls. "Then it looks like we're off to… actually, someone's going to need to tell me where we're going."

"Hold up! I didn't agree to any of this!" Yoshi's sudden outburst drew everyone's attention to him. "I'm not going anywhere other than back home."

"What?" Luigi asked. "Why?"

"Yeah, you always help out Mario." Roshi added.

"That's just it." Yoshi shook his head. "I help _Mario_. I don't know this… Ridley, was it? And this is all _way_ out of my comfort zone. I mean seriously, WE'RE IN A SPACESHIP! Most of the people here are aliens! We just fought a mountain! What's even going on at this point?"

"If you don't want to come, you don't have to." Samus said. "I'm not going to force anyone."

"Thank you." Yoshi calmed down. "Now just drop me off on my island and go."


	16. World 5-1 Double Ambush

Things were just beginning to finally calm down in the Yoshi village after a series of earthquakes and tidal waves ravaged the small island that the saurian race called home. Some members of the tribe had reported that the large rock dragon that had risen from the ocean one fateful summer had suddenly sprung to life and started to shoot blue fire from its mouth at a UFO before falling apart to be consumed by the waves.

The more sensible members of the community knew that this whole story was obviously nothing more than a bunch of malarkey and that the earthquakes must have caused the stone dragon to collapse. There was no way anything so preposterous could have happened. Or at least that was what they thought until the mysterious UFO suddenly flew by overhead and landed in the middle of town.

The citizens of the Yoshi village all gathered cautiously around the apparently alien spacecraft to get a closer look, making sure to keep their distance. After a moment, the bottom opened up and the surprise of all of the Yoshis who witnessed the strange occurrence, one of their own hopped down from inside the orange-yellow flying saucer.

"Are you-a sure that you-a don't want to-a come with us?" A voice could be heard coming from inside the UFO, seemingly calling out to the green Yoshi who had just left the extra-terrestrial vehicle.

"Completely." The green Yoshi snapped back at the voice. "Now leave, you're causing a commotion here."

The ship lifted back up off the ground as Yoshi walked away from it, towards the group of onlookers. The clan chief ran up to the green Yoshi, his son, with a look of worry on his face.

"Are you alright?" The chief asked. "What happened?"

"I'm fine." Yoshi sighed. "It's a long story, which I'd rather not talk about it."

"Well, I'm glad you're okay." The chief patted his son on the shoulder reassuringly, then glanced around. "Wait, where's your cousin, Roshi? Wasn't he with you?"

"Uh…" Yoshi tried to think of what to tell his father. "He was abducted by aliens?"

"Oh, no!" The chief exclaimed. "That's horrible! My sister and her mate will be devastated!"

"Yeah…" Yoshi was already beginning to suspect that he had a mistake, even if what he said was sort of true, from a certain point of view. "But something tells me that he'll be fine."

"Okay, which way are we goin'?" Samus asked once they had set off from Yoshi's Island.

"Well, I-a think that-a Dark Land should-a be somewhere in that-a direction." Luigi pointed in the direction he meant.

"Not very specific, but okay." Samus turned the ship of set off in the direction that the plumber indicated. "Set course for 'that-a direction'."

"You do realize that I can just check the coordinates that the message King Bowser sent you earlier was sent from to determine his location, don't you?" ADAM asked his pilot.

"Ah, where's the fun in that."

"I already miss Yoshi." Roshi muttered from the back of the ship.

"Do you-a want us to-a go back and-a drop you-a off?" Luigi asked the heavyset yellow Yoshi.

"No." Roshi shook his head, though he sounded unsure. "No. I said that I was going to help you and I am. It's just… I've never left the island before, and now…"

"Now you're on an unfamiliar spaceship headed towards a place literally called 'Dark Land', where you're going to help a bunch of people you've never met before today fight a giant fire-breathing dragon-turtle-monster so that we can rescue the princess of the kingdom that you've never visited before." Ridley summed up.

"Well, yeah, I guess." Roshi nodded.

"Eh, I've been on weirder missions before." Ridley shrugged.

"Haven't we all?" Samus asked from back in the front of the ship.

"No, I don't believe most of us have." Armstrong replied. "Unlike you two, the rest of us are at least somewhat normal."

"Well, that sounds boring." Ridley remarked snidely. "Where's the fun in-"

"Incoming plasma charge detected!"

Before anyone had a chance to react to ADAM's sudden warning, the gunship's left engine exploded, sending the ship and everyone in it spiraling to the ground in a fiery collision course for the ground. The only thing that stopped anyone from panicking was the fact that everyone in the ship apart from Samus was thrown to the back of the ship before they could.

"Joey! Barrier! Now!" Samus shouted to her young apprentice, who understood the order and complied.

The boy created an energy barrier around everyone stuck in the back of the ship just in time to shield them from the impact as the gunship hit the ground at terminal velocity. Samus was still forced to take the full impact of the crash landing, but fortunately her Fusion Suit was able to protect her well enough to only leave her mildly injured and annoyed.

"What was that?" Armstrong shouted once he and the others regained their senses.

"Don't know, but whatever did that is goin' down." Samus muttered through gritted teeth as she pulled herself out from what had been the ship's control panel. "Everyone out, now!"

Diesel flipped an emergency switch, which forced a panel of the ship's roof to jettison away, allowing everyone to climb out of the wreckage.

"ADAM, status report." Samus ordered once everyone else had evacuated the small gunship.

"Obviously not good." ADAM replied. "Almost all systems are down. The auto-repair drones should still be functional, but it will take at least 0.038 cycles to restore the ship back to useable condition. Or, to use the local measurement of time, approximately one week."

Samus swore under her breath before jumping out of the ship to check on the others. "Any sign of whatever attacked us?"

"Not yet, but whatever it was, it's probably still nearby." Armstrong replied. "Ridley took off. I think he's trying to scan the area from overhead."

Samus looked around. They had crashed in what appeared to be an open quarry of some kind. The area was barren apart from large piles of rock and stone scattered about randomly. Samus' Scan Visor was pointing out evidence that the area had been strip-mined at some point in the past but there were no signs of anyone having made use of the area in a very long time. The area reminded her somewhat of the Agon Wastes of Aether, which did nothing to put her at ease. She switched to her Thermal Visor to see if that would pick anything up, but to no avail. Samus switched back to her standard Combat Visor, wishing that she still had some of the other visor systems that she'd found over the course of her many adventures, only to inevitably lose shortly afterward. She used to have a nasty habit of losing all of her suit's functions with disturbing regularity, though fortunately she hadn't been _too_ bad with that lately. Unfortunately, she also hadn't been able to gain very many new weapons or utility features since blowing up the BSL research station, becoming a wanted fugitive and essentially losing the ability to travel to former Chozo worlds without the risk of being arrested or executed as soon as she ventured back into Federation-controlled space.

Everyone stood around anxiously, ready to be attacked at any moment. After a short moment that felt like an eternity, Ridley flew back into view. He came to a halt just overhead and dropped down.

"Found it." Ridley said as she landed. "There's a big cannon a few miles away. Doesn't look mobile, so we shouldn't need to worry about it for now. Although whoever fired it at us is probably on their way to make sure that they finished the job."

"Right." Samus nodded and considered their options, then turned to Luigi and Roshi. "You're natives to this planet, right? What can you tell us about where we are right now?"

"I've never left the island before." Roshi reminded her.

"I'm afraid that-a I haven't-a been here-a before either." Luigi shook his head.

"If none of us know this area, then it would be safe to assume that the enemy has the terrain advantage." Samus looked back and forth between her companions and as she tried to figure out what they should do now. "Diesel, you'll need to stay here and help repair the ship. 's not like you could really help in a fight, anyway."

"I resent that, even if it's true." Diesel grumbled before hovering over to the damaged ship.

"Now, Deisel and ADAM are going to be defenseless if the enemy attack. Joey, Armstrong, I want ya'll to stay behind to defend them if that happens. You're both good at defense and offense, respectively, so you should be able to do the job."

"Right." Armstrong nodded in agreement.

"Got it!" Joey said enthusiastically.

"That leaves the four of us." Samus turned to Ridley, Luigi and Roshi. "We'll be headin' to try and confront the enemy. They'll probably be expecting to fight us here, which means we might be able to throw them off a bit by meeting them half-way. Any objections, ladies?"

Samus gave a thumbs-down, which Armstong and Joey returned. Ridley, Luigi and Roshi were just left confused by the references they weren't in on. Roshi rose his hand.

"Um, I'm not sure how much help I'll be." He said. "I've never been in a fight or anything. Unless you count being bullied, but I never fought back."

"Good to know." Samus nodded, hiding the fact that she wasn't sure how to react to that last bit of information at the moment. "But I'll probably be doing most of the work. Ridley might get a hit in if he decides not to be completely useless for once."

"I am the deadliest being the universe has ever known. Men, women, hermaphrodites, asexual organisms and everything in-between cower before my presents. The mere utterance of my name is enough to make even the toughest warriors tremble in fear. I haunt the nightmares children and adults across every known galaxy. There are those who would swear they would rather face whatever devil their primitive cultures fear than to ever encounter me on even a good day. There are those who worship me as a God of Destruction that will one day bring about the end of all things. I was voted 'Most Likely to Finally Kill the Hunter' seven years in a row." Ridley objected. "I am _not_ useless."

Everyone but Samus backed away uneasily from Ridley, who had subconsciously tapped into his natural ability to induce fear, anxiety and agitation in all but the most strong-willed of individuals as he spoke.

Ridley cleared his throat before continuing. "Sorry, that was the old me coming out for a moment there."

"Right." Samus nodded as if nothing strange had just happened. "Now let's get going before we lose what little chance we have of catchin' 'em off guard. Which way was the cannon?"

Ridley pointed in the direction that he had seen it with his tail, which made for a convenient arrow. Samus then ran off in that direction, leaving the other three to follow after her while Armstrong and Joey walked over to the ship's wreckage. Roshi was having trouble keeping up with the others until Ridley decided to grab him by the arms and take to the air.

"Woah!" Roshi yelled in surprise. "Is this safe?"

"I've never dropped anyone before." Ridley smirked. "Or at least not on accident."

Roshi was beginning to question if going along on this adventure was really the best choice. Even if he was still sure it was the right thing to do, he was becoming increasingly aware of how sociopathic Ridley could be at times. Although Roshi had meant what he had said to Samus earlier about Ridley being the first person to really treat him nicely. He had always heard that friends were supposed to stick by each other even when they have problems. He hadn't really had friends before, but he was pretty sure that Ridley, Luigi and the others were his friends now. With that thought, Roshi started to feel warm inside. Ridley was kind of weird, definitely scary, but he was in essence Roshi's first real friend.

Ridley noticed that Roshi seemed to relax in his grip, which was not something that Ridley was used to. Usually, when something he was holding stopped resisting, that meant it was dead or about to die.

"Are you alright down there?" Ridley asked for what was likely the first time in his life.

"I'm fine." Roshi shouted back. "I'm feeling- Woah!"

Ridley suddenly did an aileron roll to spin out of the way of a small, fast oncoming projectile. As soon as he righted himself, he dipped slightly and let Roshi down onto the ground before landing beside Samus and Luigi. The Hunter was aiming her arm cannon in the direction where several of the quick projectile's had come from, while Luigi braced himself for a fight. It was then that their attackers decided to reveal themselves. A whirlwind of color skipped into view before breaking off into four differently colored shells that landed in a row.

"Hi-ya!" A red-shelled Koopa in a mask emerged from its shell and pointed dramatically into the air.

"Hyah!" A Koopa with a black shell and mask landed beside the first one, making the same gesture.

"Hooyah!" A third Koopa, with a yellow shell and mask, landed next to the black one before striking the same pose.

"Booyah!" The fourth and final masked Koopa, this one wearing green, landed on the opposite side of the red one than the others.

With all four Koopas in position, they moved their extended arms to point directly at Ridley and the others.

"Well, well! It's been a long time, hasn't it Mario?" The red one asked. "Bet you never thought that you'd be running into _us_ again, did you?"

"Dude, King Bowser said that this guy's not really Mario, remember?" The black-masked Koopa reminded the apparent leader of the group as they all lowered their arms.

"Oh, right." The red Koopa shook his head, before pointing at Ridley again. "Since we've never met before, I guess it's only fair that we introduce ourselves. We are…"

"The Super!" The black Koopa shouted.

"Ultra!" The yellow Koopa yelled.

"Mighty!" The green Koopa exclaimed.

"Koopa Bros!" All four Koopas finished in unison.

"We are the greatest…"

"Coolest…"

"Awesomest…"

"Best…"

"And most elite members the entire Koopa Pack." The red Koopa folded his arms imposingly.

"We've been trained from hatchlings in the ways of the Ninja." The black Koopa struck a defensive pose.

"King Bowser himself personally selected us for this mission." The yellow Koopa cocked his head to the side and cracked his knuckles.

"Mario may have beaten us once, but we've gotten _way_ stronger since then." The green Koopa said proudly before his red-clad brother slapped his shoulder.

"Dude, why would you tell them that we've been beaten before?"

"Sorry." The green Koopa Brother rubbed his now-sore arm.

"Anyway, prepare to get beaten by the now-beatable Super Ultra Mighty Koopa Bros!" The red one announced as all four Ninjakoopas regained their composure.

"Are these guys serious?" Samus gestured towards the Koopa Bros. with her thumb while turning to face Luigi and Ridley.

"Don't know." Ridley shrugged. "Probably."

"I-a think that I've heard-a Mario mention them-a before, now-a that I-a think about it." Luigi scratched his chin. "As-a far as-a I-a recall, he said that-a they weren't that hard to-a beat."

"Not that hard to…" The red Ninjakoopa repeated angrily. "WE'LL SHOW YOU! Wait until you get a load of our Super Secret Special Ultimate Techni-"

"NOT SO FAST!"

Both groups had their attention pulled away from each other by the unexpected interruption, and eight pairs of eyes turned to where the voice had come from. An armored red and silver humanoid with a large, oblong head jumped out from behind a large pile of rocks and flipped through the air before landing and striking a pose.

"We fight for evil!" The mysterious figure announced before a similar black and silver figure leaped out and landed beside the first.

"We live for disorder!" The second figure was nearly identical to the first apart from its coloration and the fact that it wore a pair of pointed black sunglasses.

"We like what we do!" A third, green one jumped out that was noticeably thinner than the first two.

"We struggle for chaos!" The fourth one was pink and had a decidedly feminine voice compared to the others.

"We are…" The fifth and apparently last one of these mysterious new beings was yellow and had a much stouter build than the others.

"THE NEO AXEM RANGERS!" All five shouted at once as a multicolored explosion erupted behind them for no apparent reason.

Ridley tilted his head to the side and looked back to the Koopa Bros., who were clearly just as confused as he and his companions were by these new arrivals.

"What do you want?" The Red Koopa Brother yelled angrily at the Neo Axem Rangers. "We're kind of in the middle of something, here!"

The red Axem Ranger pulled out a long-handled axe from behind his back and pointed it towards Ridley and his companions. "We're here to capture the one known as Ridley and his allies for our master."

"Well, too bad!" The red Koopa Brother yelled. "We have orders from our king to capture them, which means that if you want them, you're going to have to go through us first!"

Ridley tilted his head to the side and looked back and forth between the Koopa Bros. and the Neo Axem Rangers. He was at a loss for words.

"What's going on?" Samus wondered aloud.

"No idea." Luigi replied.


	17. World 5-2 Enemy Yours

The air through the quarry was tense as the three groups stared each other down. An unspoken moment seemed to serve as a signal of sorts for everyone to spring into action. Red Ninjakoopa threw a shuriken towards the Neo Axem Rangers as his brothers retracted into their shells. Axem Black ducked to the side to avoid the sharp metal star before he and the other rangers charged towards the Koopa Bros. Ridley, Luigi, Samus and Roshi backed away quietly while their enemies were distracted.

Each member of the Neo Axem Rangers carried a large, powerful axe that a normal human would have trouble lifting, let alone using as a weapon. Neither size nor weight seemed to be an issue for the villainous robots, however, who somehow managed to swing their axes around with a level of grace and finesse. The Koopa Brothers, on the other hand, primarily fought by trying to slam into their opponents while in their shells. This was not a particularly ninja-like way of fighting, nor was it particularly effective against their current opponents.

Red Ninjakoopa launched himself off the ground towards Axem Red. The robot responded with a swing of his axe and sent the large turtle flying away like a baseball. The ninjakoopa emerged from his shell and tossed something at the ground.

"Shell tactics aren't working!" Red announced to his brothers as smoke suddenly filled the area. "Time for plan B!"

The other ninjakoopas backed away from the Neo Axem Rangers for a moment and stood up. Each member pulling out a different weapon that they had somehow concealed in their shells. Black wore a pair of metal claws on his hands, which he used to swipe at Axem Green as he charged back into the fray. Yellow, on the other hand, pulled out a retractable staff which he extended to its full length before using it to block an axe swing from Axem Yellow. Meanwhile Green pulled out a small scythe-like weapon with a weighted chain at one end, which he swung overhead as charged Axem Black. This left Red Ninjakoopa to fend off both Axem Red and Axem Pink using a pair of sai.

"What do-a we do now?" Luigi whispered from behind a large pile of rocks and stone.

"Wait until one group defeats the other." Samus replied. "It'll be easier to fight off one group of already weakened opponents than to fight off two groups of enemies at once."

The group watched their would-be attackers fight off their other would-be attackers while making sure to stay out of sight. The battle raged on for a while but remained relatively one-sided. While the Koopa Brothers were able to avoid getting to hurt by their opponents thanks to their shells, their attacks proved near-useless against the heavily armored Neo Axem Rangers.

"Looks like we've got no choice." Red Ninjakoopa relented after it became clear which side was going to wing the fight. "It's time to use our secret weapon!"

"Really, bro?" Green asked.

"Yes, really. Now move out!"

At Red's command, the Koopa Brothers made a strategic retreat and gathered together. All four ninjakoopa brothers reached up and pressed a large yellow button on the collars they each wore around their neck. A massive explosion erupted behind them, which created an even larger cloud of smoke. The Koopa Brothers backflipped into the smoke and out of view. When the smoke finally cleared away, it was to reveal a mechanical facsimile of King Bowser towering over everyone. Light reflected off the giant robot's metallic green and gold armor as it towered over the group menacingly.

"Behold the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II!" The red Koopa Brother's voice shouted through a built-in speaker system.

"Wait, where did that come from?" Ridley wondered aloud.

"Perhaps leaving might be in our best interest right now, after all." Samus noted. "Then again, that one looks like it's much smaller than that last one we fought."

"Probably easier to take down, too." Ridley agreed. "We should be fine."

The Axem Rangers looked up at the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II, then glanced at each other.

"That thing looks kind of familiar." Axem Yellow noted.

"No time to dwell on that." Axem Red pumped his fist into the air. "It's time to summon the Bows!"

"Right!" The other Axem Rangers nodded and followed his lead.

A sudden rumbling shook the area like Wario getting his hands on a new bag of gold. It soon became obvious what caused the sudden tremors as five distinct figures charged into battle.

"Spiny Bow Power!" Axem Red jumped into the first of the five giant robots, which resembled a large red turtle covered in spikes and crawling on all fours.

"Bullet Bill Bow Power!" Axem Black jumped into the second one, which looked like a large black missile with eyes and arms.

"Yoshi Bow Power!" Axem Green entered the third Bow, which true to its name looked like a giant mechanical Yoshi.

"Piranha Plant Bow Power!" Axem Pink jumped into one that resembled a large pink and white plant with teeth.

"Wiggler Bow Power!" Axem Yellow took the final, bug-like Bow.

"Oh, come _on_!" Red groaned exasperatedly. "Seriously?"

"Okay, that's it." Samus sighed. "We're leaving. Now."

"Right-a behind you." Luigi agreed as the four got up and starting to flee.

"Alright, Neo Axem Ranger!" Axem Red shouted. "Initiate Gigabow sequence!"

The five Bows each began to fold up into each other and rose into the air. The Bullet Bill and Wiggler Bows transformed into a pair of legs, which the Yoshi Bow locked onto to form a body with one arm. The Piranha Plant Bow formed the other arm, while the Spiny Bow settled on top to become the head of the newly formed Gigabow. The heads of the Yoshi and Piranha Plant Bows, which now formed the Gigabow's hands, opened up so that a giant axe could emerge from each. The Gigabow towered over the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II, which only reached up to its shoulders, as it assumed a battle stance.

"If the giant robots just turn into a larger robot, then why were they even separate to begin with?" Roshi asked as he ran away along with the others, for once actually keeping up with them.

"Don't know, don't care!" Ridley replied while sprinting along on all fours. "Getting out of here!"

"This just isn't our day." Red Ninjakoopa muttered, not realizing that he was still talking into the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II's speakers. "Alright, let's just try and get this over with. Fire!"

The Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II's mouth opened up and a gush of fire blasted out from the giant flamethrower held within. The Neo Axem Rangers replied by charging forward in the Gigabow, one axe held high over its head while the other was kept low to the ground. The Gigabow ran through the fire and swung its elevated axe down to strike the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II's head while swinging its lower axe into the mechanical dragon turtle's side. The Koopa Brothers managed to grab one of the Gigabow's arms with one of the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II's clawed hands, pulling the larger giant robot closer and decking it in the face. The Gigabow struck the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II with a rocket-propelled kick from its Bullet Bill leg, sending the smaller giant robot hurtling back.

"How are we supposed to beat this thing?" Black asked.

"I don't know." Red shook his head, trying to consider their rather limited options.

"Don't worry, brothers! I've got this!" A voice called from the distance.

"Oh, no." Red and his brothers groaned upon recognizing the voice.

A giant spiked ball hurtled through the air, crashing into the Gigazord and knocking the giant multicolored robot into the ground. The source of the attack quickly became apparent as yet another giant robot ran up to them, similar in design to the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II though smaller in size and with some stylistic differences as it was designed to resemble not Bowser himself but his son Bowser Jr.

"Sorry I'm late." The v Super Mecha Bowser Jr.'s pilot said.

"Go home, Blue!" Red called back.

"What, why?" Blue sounded offended. "I'm a part of the family, too!"

"Yeah, but we're the Koopa _Brothers_ , not the Koopa Siblings." Red pointed out.

"What? Are you saying you don't want my help just because I'm a girl?" Blue shouted angrily.

"Yep, more or less." The four brothers all nodded in agreement.

"Ugh, you boys are so infuriating! Fine, see if I ever try saving your life again."

While the ninjakoopa siblings argued, the Neo Axem Rangers were able to get the Gigabow back onto its feet.

"Looks like they've got backup." Axem Pink pointed out.

"This could get difficult." Axem Black agreed.

"Looks like it's time to call in our own backup." Axem Red noted as he reached down to a button on his control panel.

"No need, I'm already here!" Another voice sounded from the top of a nearby rocky hill.

"Axem Silver!" The five Axem Rangers piloting the Gigabow called out in unison.

"That's right. I'm here now and ready to help." The silver Axem Ranger pulled out his axe and held it out above his head. "Now come to me, Silver Gigabow!"

Axem Silver flipped his axe around and raised the base of the handle up to his cylindrical mouth while placing his fingers along a series of small holes along the shaft. He then proceeded to play the axe like a saxophone to summon his personal Gigabow.

"How many times do we have to tell you that you can't join the Koopa Bros?" Red asked his sister with growing exasperation.

"I'm telling mom!" Blue whined. "Then you'll be sorry!"

"Yeah, go ahead. See if we care-huh?"

The bickering Koopa siblings turned their attention back to their opponent. Or rather, their opponents. A silver, winged Gigabow had just landed beside the first one and the sound of a saxophone filled the air. It was shorter than the first Gigabow, being closer to the Super Mecha Bowser X Mk. II in height, and had a more uniform appearance as it was not made from several smaller robots like the first Gigabow.

"Where did _you_ come from?" Red wondered aloud.

"That doesn't matter to you." Axem Red replied. "Just know that you're going down in the name of our new boss!"

"Does that mean that you're not working for, uh, Smitty anymore?" Yellow asked.

"Smithy." Axem Black corrected him. "And that's a no. We work for the one who rebuilt and upgraded us now, Master Kamek!"

Silence filled the air, apart from the continued music of Axem Silver's s-axe-ophone.

"Did you just say… Kamek?" Red asked.

"That's right!" Axem Pink confirmed. "And we won't let anyone get in his way!"

"But, Kamek works for King Bowser." Black pointed out. Doesn't that mean that you work for Bowser?"

"I guess so." Axem Red replied, leading to another pause.

"But… we work for Bowser." Red Ninjakoopa said at last.

"You do?"

"Why do you think we have a giant robot designed to look like him?" Green asked.

"I knew it looked familiar." Axem Yellow replied.

"Wait, but if _you_ work for Bowser, and _we_ work for Bowser…" Axem Red started to put the pieces together. "Then that would mean that we're on the same side."

"Well, this is embarrassing." Axem Pink sighed.

* * *

"That was certainly something." Ridley remarked after he and the others managed to get out of sight from the giant fighting robots and slowed to a walk.

"Do-a you think the-a others will-a be alright?" Luigi asked.

"I'm sure that ADAM and Diesel can get the ship running again soon." Samus assured him. "I doubt they'll be in any trouble."

"But what happens if we get attacked again?" Roshi asked, sounding a bit panicked.

"I doubt that'll happen."

Samus was almost immediately proven wrong as they suddenly found themselves surrounded by four giant robots, all looking down at them menacingly.

"Well, frak."


End file.
